The Science of All 27 Blend Modes in Photoshop!

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Unmesh Dinda 0:00 Hi there, this is Unmesh from PiXimperfect. And today we're going to go through and understand all 27 main Blend Modes in Photoshop super fast. This is your handy guide to Blend Modes. You can come back to this video and use these timestamps to skip to any section that you like. So, without any further ado, let's get started. Blend Modes are divided into groups. Each group of Blend Mode has a common property. The first group is the Normal group and very surprisingly, the first Blend Mode is Normal. When the Normal Blend Mode is selected, the layers do not interact with each other. It's like a piece of paper on top of each other. Have a look, the yellow circle layer is on top of the red circle layer. If I take the red up, it's like the red is on top. Now, of course you can increase or decrease the Opacity to control the transparency of the layer, but that's the most you can do with it. The next one in the Normal group is the Dissolve Blend Mode and since it is in Normal group, this Blend Mode does not interact with other layers as well. When the layer is solid and Opacity and Fill, both are at 100, the Dissolve Blend Mode acts same as the Normal Blend Mode. Have a look at it, Dissolve and Normal, both are creating the same effect or no effect at all. The only difference Dissolve shows is during transparency. Right now, let's change it to Dissolve, and if I decrease the Opacity, have a look at it, it is becoming transparent in the form of dots, and the lesser the Opacity is, the more further apart the dots are. Are you getting it? No? Let me give you one more example. Let's turn on a black background and let's turn on a soft beam. It is going from opaque to transparent gradually. Now, if I change the Blend Mode from Normal to Dissolve, have a look at this, it is becoming transparent slowly and gradually in the form of dots. The more opaque the area is, the closer the dots are, the more transparent an area is, the further apart the dots are and that is pretty much the difference. If you change it back to Normal, it's not represented in the form of dots. And by the way, 99.9% of the time, you will not use the Dissolve Blend Mode. The next group is the Darken group. And as the name suggests, all of the Blend Modes inside of this group darken stuff. And again, what a surprise, the first Blend Mode in the Darken group is Darken. Oh my God! I couldn't have guessed it. The Darken Blend Mode will hide any pixel which is brighter than the projected surface. Makes sense? No? Let me put some sense to it. Have a look at this. So, here we have a red solid background. Now, have a look at the brightness level. So, let's go to the color picker. So, brightness level is what? 53%, right. Hit OK. Let's turn on a simple Gradient. So, this is a gradient from black to white, right? If we change the Blend Mode from Normal to Darken, everything beyond half of it is now hidden. Why is that? So let's change it back to Normal and let's understand this. So, this was 0%, right? This was 50% gray and this is 100%. Now, what was the brightness level of this red thing? 53%, right? Everything beyond 53% would be hidden if you choose the Darken Blend Mode. So, let's turn it on and let's choose Darken Blend Mode. Since this was 50 and the brightest level of this one was 53, everything beyond that 53 just hides. Still not clear? Let me show you one more example. So, if we simply paint, so let's take the brush and let's take gray color and let's start painting on top of this. This is just to show you what's happening. Now, on top of this layer, let's create one more new layer and this time, let's take a lighter shade, a little lighter shade, and paint on top of it. If I change the Blend Mode from Normal to Darken, you will not be able to see it. It's totally hidden. Now, if in the same layer where the Darken Blend Mode is selected, if we choose a darker shade, just a little darker shade, and start painting, it's going to show up, but any lighter shade is not going to show up. Let's move to the next Blend Mode which is Multiply. The Multiply Blend Mode is one of the Blend Modes which you will find yourself using time and again. Just as the name suggests, the Multiply Blend Mode multiplies. So, think of black as zero because black has nothing, it's nothingness. Think of white as 1, because it has all the possible light there is. Now, anything you multiply with zero is what? Zero, right? It's absolutely zero. Now, anything you multiply with 1 is what? The number itself. So, if I multiply 563 with 1, it's going to be 563. So when you choose the Blend Mode - Multiply, it simply does exactly that. So, let's change the Blend Mode of this gradient from Normal to Multiply. See, anything multiplied with zero was what? Zero itself and zero is what? Zero is black. So, 100% black is exactly 100% black in Multiply. Anything multiplied by 1 is what? The number itself. So, at the bottom we had the red color. So, the red color, that particular shade of red, multiplied by 1 is what? Exactly that particular shade of red. If Math is confusing to you, no problem, I got you. Just keep in mind Multiply darkens - number 1. Multiply shows everything which is 100% black. So it shows the black, but only and only 100% black. Multiply hides everything which is 100% white. So, Multiply darkens, shows 100% black and hides 100% white. Now, keep in mind, Multiply does not hide the brighter pixels like Darken does. So, if we change the Blend Mode from Multiply to Darken, have a look, all of the brighter pixels than the projected surface are now hidden. However, in Multiply, only 100% white will hide. Anything even slightly darker than 100% white is going to show up. The next one on our list is Color Burn. Sounds familiar? Dodging & Burning? Remember, Dodging is brightening and Burning means darkening. So, similarly, according to the name, Color Burn adds color and it darkens. However, technically speaking, Color Burn has four properties. Number one, if the projected surface is 100% white, it will leave it at that. So it keeps the 100% white of the projected surface just as it as it keeps the 100% black of the projected surface as black, totally black, it does not touch it. Number three, it darkens and number four, it adds color. Let's have a look at this example. So, here we have a purple color. So, if we turn it on and change it to Color Burn, have a look at this one. So, anything that was very bright, it's going to leave it at that. So, let me show you an example. So, if I create a new layer on top of it, and if I just paint in white in this area, and turn this on and choose Color Burn, it's already chosen. Let's choose it again, Color Burn. So, it's going to leave the white as white, it's not going to darken it. If you choose Multiply, it's going to darken the white, But with Color Burn, it will leave the white as white. Also, if you had painted in black, so let's paint it in black right over there, there we go. So, it's going to leave the black as black. To make it even simpler, let's pull down a gradient under that purple color and let's turn this on. So, this is a simple gradient on top of that we have chosen the purple color and turned it on - Color Burn. So, it's going to leave the white as white it's going to leave the black, 100% black as black and it's going to color the middle and also darken it at the same time. Now, please keep in mind, this is a very important note. Color Burn is a part of special eight Blend Modes. Now, these special eight Blend Modes react differently to Opacity and Fill. So, let's have a look. If we simply decrease the Opacity, it's just fading it, right? It's simply fading it, it's not doing anything. However, if you decrease the Fill, it's going to decrease the projection in an interesting way. So, let's decrease the Fill. Have a look at this, it's controlling the projection. So, Color Burn is one of those Blend Modes. So for this example, I'm going to probably choose somewhere about, maybe 22 or something. And have a look at this, it's creating this wonderful effect in the picture. Now let's talk about a Linear Burn. It's a very similar Blend Mode to Color Burn with one major difference. So if we choose Color Burn, let's increase the Fill and Opacity to 100. Let's change it to Linear Burn. What is the difference that you see? Let me do that again for you, Color Burn and then Linear Burn. There's just one difference. Have a look at it closely. It does not, and listen to this very carefully, it does not keep 100% white as white. So, if we created a new layer on top of it and painted white on it, it is not keeping it white. Let's increase the Flow to 100, let's paint white. It's not white anymore. If we change the Blend Mode back to Color Burn, see it's keeping it white. However, Linear Burn is not going to keep it white. That's the one major difference. Otherwise, both are very, very similar. Linear Burn is also a part of special eight Blend Modes, just like Color Burn. The darker color is a Blend Mode which you will never use. It is just a harsher version of the Darken Blend Mode. So, let's choose first of all Darken, let's see what it does. So, if we choose Darken, it hides every pixel which is brighter than the projected area, right? So everything brighter than that 53% is now hidden. So now let's choose a Darker Color. It does a very similar thing, but it goes a little extreme, it shows the exact color of the gradient. So, it is just an extreme version of the Darken Blend Mode. Have a look at this, it hides that. Darker Color also hides it, but it takes it to a little more extreme. Moving on to the next Blend Mode group, the Lighten group and I don't even have to say it anymore. The first Blend Mode is Lighten again. Just keep in mind that the Lighten Blend Mode is the exact opposite of the Darken Blend Mode. So, let's see what Darken does. So, this is Darken, it's hiding every pixel which is brighter than the projected surface, right. Remember? Similarly if you choose to Lighten Blend Mode, it will do exactly the opposite. Similarly, the Screen Blend Mode is the opposite of Multiply. So, let's see what Multiply did. So, if we choose Multiply, remember, it hides everything which is 100% white. It shows everything which is 100% black and it darkens, right, and Multiply multiplies. So, Screen as the exact opposite. So, if you choose Screen, see, it does the exact opposite thing. It shows everything which is 100% white, it hides everything which is 100% black and it brightens. So, have a look at the pattern here. Opposite of Darken is Lighten, opposite of Multiply is Screen. Again, opposite of Color Burn is Color Dodge. Now, just as Color Burn, remember what it did, Color Burn added color, it also darkened. Now, one important property of Color Burn was that it kept 100% white on the projected surface, as 100% white. It left it at that. Similarly, if you choose Color Dodge.. so this is a normal color right here, let me just increase the Fill and Opacity. So, this is just a simple Normal Fill. Now, I have added a tiny bit of Blend If on it, so let's just take it back to Normal. Have a look at this this is a simple color. Now, if you choose Color Dodge, it will brighten, it will add color. However, it will keep everything that was 100% black on the projected surface as 100% black. The areas that were totally black are black. It doesn't touch them. However, if you choose Linear Dodge, it will also brighten the areas that were totally black. Just as Color Burn and Linear Burn did. Color Burn kept 100% white as white and Linear Burn didn't do that. Similarly, Color Dodge kept 100% black as black on the projected surface and Linear Dodge brightened 100% black as well. Moving on to the Lighter Color Blend Mode. This is also something which you will never use. However, just keep in mind, it's the exact opposite of Darker Color. See, what Darker Color does. So, Darker Color, again, is an extreme version of Darken. So if we choose Darker Color, it does what Darken does, but in an extreme fashion. Similarly, Lighter Color is an extreme version of Lighten. So, if we choose Lighter Color, it will do the exact opposite. Notice that those two bars showed up in Darker Color. So, if we choose Darker Color, two bars were showing up and nothing else showed up, and if we choose Lighter Color, those two bars are not showing up and everything else is showing up. So therefore, we can say that Lighter Color is the exact opposite of Darker Color. Time for us to move to the next group, which is the Contrast group. Now, what is the meaning of adding contrast? In general, adding contrast is brightening the brights and darkening the darks. So, every Blend Mode inside of the contrast group brightens the bright pixels and darkens the dark pixels. Starting with the first Blend Mode in the Contrast group and this is Overlay. Now, Overlay is a Blend Mode which you will find yourself using time and again, again and again, maybe the most used Blend Mode. Let's see what it does. So, here we have a simple gradient. In the middle we have 50% gray, at the top we have 100% white and at the bottom we have totally black. Now, let's change the Blend Mode from Normal to Overlay. Let's see the before and after. So, here is the before, here is the after. Everything that was 50% gray, those areas did not change at all. Before - after, before - after. This area is exactly the same. However, anything and everything brighter than 50% gray, those areas became brighter, and everything darker than 50% gray, those areas became darker. So, simply put, Overlay hides everything which is 50% gray, brightens everything which is brighter than 50% gray and darkens everything which is darker than 50% gray. In other words, we can see that the Overlay Blend Mode increases contrast. Let's have a look at this. So, let's hide this and if we make a copy of the background layer by pressing Ctrl or Command + J, and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Overlay, have a look at it, it simply increases the contrast. Now, this is not the best way to do it, because this is kind of destructive. And if you make a change in the background layer, you will also have to make that same change on the background copy. So, a better way to do it, just a small tip, is simply create a Levels or Curves Adjustment layer. Don't do anything in that Adjustment layer. Let's choose any one of them and change the Blend Mode of that one from Normal to Overlay. So, it does the exact same thing. It creates a virtual copy of the layer, which will change if you change the background layer and it will create the same effect just as copying the layer and changing the Blend Mode to Overlay. Have a look at it. It adds contrast to it. The next one - Soft Light - is a Blend Mode is something which you can also call Overlay - the junior, because it's just a mild version of Overlay. So if we again create a Levels Adjustment layer or just make a copy of the background, Ctrl or Command + J, and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Overlay, that rhymed, have a look, it adds a ton of contrast. If you change it back to Soft Light, it adds mild contrast. That's it. So this is Overlay and this one is Soft Light. Just a mild version of Overlay. So similarly, if you had the gradient, I can show it to you even better. So, here we have the gradient again, right? This is Overlay, it again hides everything which is 50% gray, brightens everything brighter than 50% gray and darkens everything darker than 50% gray. If you choose Soft Light, see, it's just a mild version of it. Overlay and then Soft Light. Less contrast. Hard Light is a Blend Mode which you can call Overlay - the faded, because it's simply a version of Overlay with faded contrast. So, here we are in Photoshop and let's create an interesting effect. With the background layer selected, press Ctrl or Command + J. Now, let's blur it out totally. Let's go to Filter - Blur and Gaussian Blur. Let's add a ton of blur, something like that..424 or maybe, let's go for 470. That sounds perfect. Hit OK. Let's change the Blend Mode from Normal to Hard Light. Have a look at the faded contrast it adds. However, if you choose Overlay, it won't be faded. But, if you choose Hardlight, look at the change here. See the fadedness in the shadows? Now, of course this is too much. You can always decrease the Opacity. So let's decrease the Opacity and and let's give it a tiny bit of the effect, the fill here. Have a look at this one. So here's the before, here's the after. Adding that colorful punch and a little bit of faded contrast, it's creating a really nice effect. Before - after. Subtle, but nice. Now, let's talk about the next Blend Modes - Vivid Light and Linear Light - together because both of them are very similar but with one major difference. So, here we have a gradient from white to black. Now, on top of that, for any color which is not very extreme, if you choose the Blend Mode - Vivid Light, have a look at this, it's going to leave 100% black as black and 100% white as white, right. But if you choose an extreme color, of course this can change. But mostly, if you choose any color which is not extreme, 100% white will be white and 100% black will be black in the projected area. Now, if you choose Linear Light, it's going to change. Linear Light does not keep 100% white as white and 100% black as black if it's not an extreme color. Does that ring a bell? Just like Color Burn, Linear Burn and Color Dodge and Linear Dodge. The linear thing does not let 100% white be 100% white or 100% black be 100% black depending upon the Blend Mode. Just keep in mind, Vivid Light, it keeps 100% black as black and 100% white as white for colors which are not extreme. However, Linear Light, it's not going to do that. Both of the Blend Modes have two common properties. Number one, it adds contrast because it is in the Contrast group. And number two, both of them add color. Let's just take this one away. Let's just delete that. So here we have a beautiful picture. Let's turn this one on and add some Linear Light to it. Now, this is very, very extreme. Keep in mind that Linear Light is a part of the special eight Blend Modes. So, Opacity and Fill would react differently. So if we decrease the Fill, have a look, it's decreasing the projection and creating a wonderful effect in here. So you can also create a gradient of blue, orange and again blue. Something like that. You can also choose, let's say Vivid Light for a similar effect. I think I like Vivid Light even more in this scenario. There you go, here's the before, here's the after. The next Blend Mode, Pin Light is an interesting combination of Darken and Lighten Blend Mode. Before we begin with Pin Light, I would highly recommend that you go back and understand Lighten and Darken if you haven't done that yet. However, have a look at this. So, this is again, a normal gradient. If you choose the Blend Mode - Pin Light, it creates an interesting effect. Let's choose Pin Light right there, it is just like Darken and Lighten. That's it, and I can prove that to you. So, let us hide that for a moment and make a copy of it. Right. Turn this on. Let's change the Blend Mode from Pin Light to Darken. But this is kind of too much. We want to take it away. So, let's add some levels to it. Ctrl or Command + L and play with it, just like that. Let's take it to about half, maybe 128 would be fine. Hit OK. Now, I'm going to make one more copy of this one - Ctrl or Command + J, place it at the top, turn it on. And this time change the Blend Mode to Lighten. Press Ctrl or Command + L again, and this time do just the opposite. Take it at 128 - 1 2 8, hit OK. So, these are the two Blend Modes, Lighten and this one was Darken. Let's name this Darken and Lighten. Let's make a group of both of them. So select the first one, hold the Ctrl or Command, select the second one Ctrl or Command + G. And there you go. Look at what kind of effect it's creating. And look at what this is creating. This one was Pin Light, right? The exact same effect. So, you understand how this is working? This is a combination of Lighten and Darken. That's it. Hard Mix is a very interesting Blend Mode. It conforms the layer to just eight colors. So, what are those eight colors? Let me show that to you. So here we a symbol gray background and on top of it we have a representation of the colors. So let's turn it on. So, here's a color wheel and on the right hand side we have a gradient from black to white. Now, if you change the Blend Mode from Normal to, let's say, Hard Mix, have a look at what it does. See, this was Normal and this is Hard Mix. We had all the colors, all the gradients. It is just reduced to white, black, red, green, blue, CMY. Isn't that interesting? Have a look at it again. So this is Normal with all the colors and the gradients, and if I change it to Hard Mix, it is just black, white, RGB, CMY, right. So, if we choose the Blend Mode Hard Mix, it will conform the colors to those eight colors. It will not let you have any color outside of those eight colors. And what are those eight colors - black, white, RGB, CMY. Black, white, red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow. So, let's create a Solid Color Adjustment layer and create a nice effect for this background. So, here we have some beautiful flowers. So you can of course, create a Solid Color Adjustment layer by clicking on the Adjustment layer icon and let's choose Solid Color. Let's add some more blues to the flowers, something like this and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Hard Mix. See what it does. It will reduce and conform all the colors to just those eight colors. So in this case, it reduced them to blue, magenta, and probably a little bit of cyan. Have a look at this. Look here. Now, here's an interesting part. Keep in mind that the Hard Mix Blend Mode is a part of special eight Blend Modes. Now, what's with these special eight Blend Modes? It reacts differently to Opacity and Fill. Now if you decrease the Fill of the Hard Mix Blend Mode, it shows more and more colors. If the Fill is that 100%, it will never ever show more than eight colors. But, if you decrease the Fill, have a look, more and more colors begin to show up, which is amazing. So, you can keep it at about 26. Have a look at the nice effect it's creating. You can also create a gradient if you want to. So click on the Adjustment layer icon and let's choose Gradient. You can choose from a variety of gradients in here. Let's choose this one, I like that, hit OK. Hit OK again and change the Blend Mode to Hard Mix, and now decrease the Fill. This also creates a pretty nice effect for the flowers. I love the colors in here. Moving on to the next Blend Mode group which is the Inversion group. Now, the Blend Modes inside of the Inversion group are mostly utility Blend Modes. You might not use it artistically, but they have their own practical uses. The Difference Blend Modes is simply the difference between two interacting colors. Technically speaking, it is the difference between the R, G and B values. Have a look at this yellow circle, look at the color of it. The color is R,G and B. Look at the RGB values, R - 230 G - 169 and B - 57. Right. Hit OK. Now, we have the same ellipse, same circle with the same color moved a little differently. Now, if you look at the color, double click on the thumbnail, it's the same color, right? 230, 169, 57. Now, if I change the Blend Mode from Normal to Difference, have a look at what happens. Look at the area where it intersects. That area becomes black. Why is that? Have a look at the RGB values of black. So, if I simply take the color picker, look at the RGB values of black - 0 - 0 - 0. And do you know what is 0 0 0? It's simply 230-230, 169-169 and 57-57. So, the difference between the same colors, or the same values is, of course, zero and what is 0 0 0? Black. So, therefore, Difference Blend Mode is simply the difference between the RGB values of two interacting colors. Now, let me show you one more example. So, here is one more circle and look at the values of it - 255 - 0 - 0, right? And this one was 230, 169, 57. So, difference between 255 and 230 is what? Let's change the Blend Mode from Normal to Difference. You will look at the difference instantly. It is green. If you pick that color, have a look, difference between 255 and 230 is what? 25. And both of them are exactly the same because they were 0 - 0. So, difference between zero and 169 is 169, zero and 57 is 57. So, it's just a difference of R, G and B values. Well, that is all great. But how are you supposed to use the Difference Blend Mode? Well, I have a video about it, or just a simple reminder, you can use the Difference Blend Mode for aligning stuff. So, let's have a look at this. We have a simple scenery and you have a scenery on top of it with a different exposure. I just copied the same exact thing. So, if I turn it on, they're in the exact same position right? So, exact same color on top of the exact same color. So, if I choose the Blend Mode - Difference, it's going to be black. But if I move it a little bit, you will see the disparity. Zoom in and once we align both of them nicely, it should become black. But, for that you need to align them. See, once we align them, it becomes black. So, the Difference Blend Mode can be greatly used for aligning stuff. So, let's say, in one of the photos, the eye is not in focus. So, you take the eye from another photo of the same person in the same lighting situation, bring it in, and you can use the Blend Mode - Difference to align the new eye on top of the blurred eyes. There can be many other uses. This is just one of them. Trust me, you will not use it 99.9999% of the time. The math behind it is pretty simple, but it can be confusing. All you need to know is this - it's a variation of the Blend Mode - Difference with a slight change. It does not invert the mid tones. That's it. Or artistically speaking, you can apply it to create some faded effects here and there. So, I have added a blue color on top of the subject, a simple blue color, I can make it a little brighter and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Exclusion. Look at the kind of effect it's creating. Now keep in mind, it makes black disappear. So, if I choose black in here, it's not going to do any changes in here. As you increase it, you see more and more blues in the shadows and yellow in the highlights. Remember, RGB opposite of CMY. Blue is the opposite of yellow. So, as I increase it, see a nice inverted effect. I really like that. I'm going to stop here and decrease the Opacity, it creates a pretty nice effect. The next Blend Mode group, which is the Cancellation group is something which you will never, never ever, ever, ever use. This is totally.. I don't know, I have never used it. Maybe, you will find a use for it. And the first Blend Mode is Subtract. Let's have a look at it. So, here's a blank document. Let's create a new layer. Let's take the brush and let's take a simple color. Let's get the RGB values to 50 - 50 - 50. And let's start painting in here. Whoops. I didn't mean to do that. So, this is just a squiggly painting, doesn't mean anything. There we go. Pretty nice. And on top of it, let's create one more color. And let this be 50 - 10 - 50. Hit OK and let's paint here, right. Now, let's change the Blend Mode from Normal to Subtract. Look at what it did. It turned it green, right? Now, let's pick this color, let's see what the values are. It is 0 - 40 - 0. And how is that? Remember, the first time we picked 50 - 50 - 50. Second time we picked 50 - 10 - 50. So ,50 minus 50 is zero, 50 minus 10 is 40 and this one is zero. Now, unlike Difference, which measures the difference, the Subtract Blend Mode only subtracts. In other words, let's understand it in this way. So, if there was a surface and the value of R would have been, let's say, zero. On top of it, we create a color with the value of R - 150 and we changed the Blend Mode to Difference, the resulting color would be 150. Why? Because the difference between zero and 150 is 150. However, if you had chosen the Subtract Blend Mode, the value cannot be -150. So it will remain zero. Does that make sense? No? Let me try to make sense of it for you. Alright, so let's delete both of them. Let's start afresh. So, here's the new layer, and let's choose any color and let's set the value of R to zero, right. Hit OK, and we paint it. On top of it, we create a new layer and this time let the value of R be 100. Okay. Now, let's paint on it. Let's choose the Blend Mode - Subtract. Have a look. It will be absolutely black. Now let's pick the color. It is zero. Why is it zero? Remember the first time we chose the value of R to be zero, the second time it was 100. It is not the Difference Blend Mode which is going to choose the difference. Again, this is simply subtract. So, it could not subtract zero minus 100. It cannot go below zero, so it's going to keep it at zero. However, if you chose Difference, have a look at it, it's going to choose 100. Take this color, the value of R is 100 because the difference between zero and 100 is 100, however, zero minus 100, it's going to keep it at zero because it cannot go below zero. Now, there's not much practical use of it, maybe you'll find some use of this Blend Mode. However, I was just simply applying a simple gradient map and chose Subtract and it created a pretty nice effect. Sometimes it might create nice effects, but that's basically it. And I added some Curves and wrote some text and that's it. The Divide Blend Mode simply devides the color. And how does it do that? Well, it uses some simple math. So, let us understand how it works. I'm so sorry guys. There's a lot of math in this class. All right. Have a look at this one. Remember what we learned before? Think of black as zero because it is nothingness, no light, no nothing. So think of this as zero and think of white as 1, right? Now, if you have any number and you divide it with zero, what do you get? This is infinity. But we cannot have infinity. The highest brightness that your image can show is absolutely white. So, this area will be totally white, 100%. Great. Now, if you have any number or anything, you divide it by one, what do we get? The number itself, right. Makes sense? So, the top area will not change. It will be the same exact color. So, now let's go ahead and change the Blend Mode of this one from Normal to Divide. Look at the top area. It's the same, before - after, but the bottom area is absolutely white. Now, there's a lot more math that goes into it. But this is a simplified version of the same. I hope it makes sense to you. And if you find some use for it, please let me know in the comments below. The next group is Component group and it deals with different components of color like hue, saturation, and luminosity. Hue is 'what' color, saturation is 'how much' color and luminosity or brightness is the 'brightness' of that color. Let me show that to you. So here is the color picker. This is the Hue bar. So, if I change this one, it changes the root color. Hue determines what is going to be the root color. Now if I choose Saturation, this becomes the Saturation bar. Now, once we have chosen a root color, let's choose a root color - yellow, something like this. Once we have chosen that, let's choose S which stands for Saturation. How much of that color? Little of that color? More of that color? More yellow, less yellow. Right. If you take the saturation all the way down, it's going to become grayscale. Next comes the brightness of the color. So the yellow color that we had chosen, how bright do you want that to be? So let's choose B. This is maximum brightness. If you take it down all the way down, it's going to be black. Making sense? So that's how it works, components of color - Hue, Saturation, Brightness. Hit OK. Similarly, we have similar Blend Mode. First of all, let's talk about the Hue Blend Mode. So, here we have a beautiful photo of the flowers. Now, just ignore this layer, on top of it, we have this yellow color. If we change the Blend Mode to Hue, see what happens. Again, keep in mind, hue is 'what color', it is the root color, so it's going to only change the root color of the existing color. So, let's change the Blend Mode to Hue. See what it did? So any color you choose, it's going to change the root color to that. So, I'm going to change the Hue to green, it's going to change it to green, blue, pink or whatever color there is. Now keep in mind, Hue will only change the root color. If there is no root color, it will not change it because there's nothing to change. Now have a look at this. Here's one more photo. On the left hand side, it's absolutely grayscale. There is no hue in there. On the right hand side, there's the original image. Now when I turn this on, have a look at this. It's not adding color to it. Why? Because there is no hue to change. There is just no root color, no hue to change, so it cannot change anything. However, on the right hand side, it's changing it because there's already hue here and there. Right? There is some root color to change. If I turn this on, it's going to change all the hue from pink to that color or whatever color there is to exactly the yellow that we chose. Now, let me show you one more thing. Have a look at the value of the Hue. So in this case, the Hue was 64, right? Now, if take the color picker and look at the hue of different areas, the Saturation and Brightness might change. But in all of the places, the Hue is near close to 64. See, this is 64, this is 64, this is 64, this is 64. Right? So it brings the Hue to exactly the number you chose. Now, in grayscale areas, there is nothing so it's going to show zero, but any place where there's a tiny bit of color, it's going to change the Hue 64. Hit OK. Now let's talk about the Blend Mode - Saturation. Again, Hue is what color or the root color, Saturation is how much color. It has nothing to do with what is the color or how bright is the color. It has only to do with how much color. So even if you choose yellow here and change the Blend Mode to Saturation, it's going to try to increase the saturation to that level. No matter what hue you choose, it's going to be exactly the same. However, if you increase the value of S in here, let's choose S, if you increase the value of S, let's increase it, it's going to increase the overall saturation. If you decrease it, it's going to decrease the overall saturation. So it only controls the amount of color no matter what hue you choose, right. I'm changing the Hue. It's the exact same thing. However, if I'm decreasing the Saturation by taking it to the left, it's decreasing the saturation of the image. If I'm increasing the Saturation, it's increasing the saturation. It only controls the amount of color. Let's move on to the next one, which is Color. Now, what Color does is it applies the color. Whatever color you choose, it's going to apply it all throughout the image, whether it's grayscale or not, it's going to apply it. If we had chosen Saturation, there was color to increase on the right hand side but the left hand side was grayscale. So, no matter how much Saturation Blend Mode you apply, it's going to be grayscale. But if you choose the Color Blend Mode, it's going to apply whatever color you choose uniformly throughout the image. See, whatever you choose, it might be dark, it might be bright. It will apply that color. Hit OK. Moving on to the last one, the final Blend Mode - Luminosity. Now, the Luminosity Blend Mode is simply a command that says 'Do not touch the color, only touch the brightness levels.' Let me show you what you can do with it. So, here is a pretty nice image. If we go ahead and create a Curves Adjustment layer, click on the Adjustment layer icon and let's choose Curves, right, if we, let's say, increase the Contrast, it also saturates the color a little bit. But, if you don't want to do that, but if you don't want to touch the color, but only the brightness levels or brightness values, simply change the Blend Mode to Luminosity. Have a look at this, the colors are no more affected. If I change that back to Normal, see, it's saturating the color. But if you choose the Blend Mode - Luminosity, it's not affecting the colors. Similarly, you can do some interesting stuff with it. Let's delete the Curves Adjustment layer and again create, let's say, a Black and White Adjustment layer. Click on the Adjustment layer icon and choose Black and White. It's going to make it black and white, but, if we choose the Blend Mode - Luminosity, we will be saying to Photoshop 'Do not touch the color. Let the colors be the way they were.' So, I'm going to change it from Normal to Luminosity. See, the colors are now back. Now, the Black and White Adjustment layer is only going to affect the Luminosity, the colors are going to stay intact. Now, you can play with all the colors individually. Isn't that amazing? So, you can play with the green, cyan, blues separately just by changing the Blend Mode to Luminosity. So, Luminosity simply means 'Do not touch the colors, only affect the luminosity.' That's it. So there you go. That's a general understanding of the main 27 blend modes in Photoshop. Keep in mind these timestamps. Anytime you might want to come back to this video for reference, use these timestamps to skip to that particular section. Now, in Photoshop, there are three more Blend Modes that show up in special situations. Pass Through - which applies to groups. Second is Behind and third one is Clear which applies to Brush Blend Modes. Now, those are not very important. Behind and Clear, those are completely useless. You don't even have to look into those. But, Pass Through is a very important Blend Mode, especially for compositing and I have a video about it. You can check it out right here. So, that's pretty much it for this video. Hope this video helped you and if it did, make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe, ring the bell so that you, my friend, don't miss any other future tip, trick or tutorial. I'd love to take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on Patreon and helping keep PiXimperfect free for everybody forever. Thanks so much for all your support. Thank you for watching. I'll see you guys in my next one. Till then, stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Channel: PiXimperfect
Views: 533,353
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Keywords: blend modes, blending modes, blending modes explained, photoshop blending modes, photoshop tutorial, adobe, layer blend modes, blending mode guide, breakdown of blend modes, how blend modes work, science behind blend modes, dissolve, darken, multiply, color burn, linear burn, overlay, soft light, linear light, vivid light, luminosity, understanding blend modes, all blending modes explained, piximperfect, unmesh dinda
Id: i1D9ijh3_-I
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Length: 42min 12sec (2532 seconds)
Published: Mon May 13 2019
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