PS Blend modes can make a shot out of "nothing"!

Well, maybe not nothing, but it seems like that sometimes. What I’m trying to do here is to replicate some things I did with these shots on a slide duplicator using film & double exposure. I started with 2 shots. One is a slightly blurred pic of geese taken in Canada. The other is from back when I had a 600mm 5.6 lens & I took some pics of the sun. Look at the Layers Palette at the bottom. I selected the clouds & sun, inverted, & added some gaussian blur to a dupe layer to take out some of the noise generated in the dark areas during the slide duping to a digital file. Added a touch of Levels to brighten it up a bit.

Pic 3. Then I made a new layer on top, filled it with red, & set the Blend Mode to Multiply. Opacity was dialed down to 69% to fade out some of the red. Finally, I dragged in the birds pic layer, & set the Blend Mode to Multiply. Done! And not to shabby for “nothing shots”, if I do say so myself!

So, when there’s a lull in the action, shoot some skies with clouds, trees that would look good in the background, etc., & save them in a file for those times when your fav subject is in front of a crappy background, or for those loooong Winter nights when you have nothing better to do. You’ll be glad that you did!

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I like very much the result.
Thanks for sharing.
Jose

Thanks for that There are a bunch of blending modes, is there anywhere that describes what each does and when/why to use it?

Works for me. Nicely done.


Tim: There is a list of the blend modes and descriptions in the Help file in PS. Also most PS books - the big "Bible" or "Complete" ones - will usually have some examples. Best bet is to play, though. Layer two pics, set the top one for 65% opacity, and then just cycle through the blend modes and check out each one. Many will just not make sense at all for this type of thing, so you'll quickly narrow it down to 3-5 that you'll care about.

Cheers Scottes. My main PS book is "CS for photographers", I should get myself a general one and read it sometime I guess. It's not the simplest program around eh?

tim wrote:
Thanks for that There are a bunch of blending modes, is there anywhere that describes what each does and when/why to use it?

If you have PS/CS copy this and paste it in Internet explorer of FF etc...

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS\Help\1_12_5_1.html

Just check out the link Kawter posted. That's the page I was thinking about, but I was too lazy to look for it.

But it still helps to play a bit.

Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V and WHALLA


To select a blending mode for a tool:

Choose from the Mode pop-up menu in the options bar.

Normal
Edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. This is the default mode. (Normal mode is called Threshold when you're working with a bitmapped or indexed-color image.)

Dissolve
Edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. However, the result color is a random replacement of the pixels with the base color or the blend color, depending on the opacity at any pixel location.

Behind
Edits or paints only on the transparent part of a layer. This mode works only in layers with Lock Transparency deselected and is analogous to painting on the back of transparent areas in a sheet of acetate.

Clear
Edits or paints each pixel and makes it transparent. This mode is available for the Line tool (when fill region is selected), the Paint Bucket tool , the Brush tool , the Pencil tool , the Fill command, and the Stroke command. You must be in a layer with Lock Transparency deselected to use this mode.

Darken
Looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color--whichever is darker--as the result color. Pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change.

Multiply
Looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The result color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged. When you're painting with a color other than black or white, successive strokes with a painting tool produce progressively darker colors. The effect is similar to drawing on the image with multiple magic markers.

Color Burn
Looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the contrast. Blending with white produces no change.

Linear Burn
Looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the brightness. Blending with white produces no change.

Lighten
Looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color--whichever is lighter--as the result color. Pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change.

Screen
Looks at each channel's color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.

Color Dodge
Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the contrast. Blending with black produces no change.

Linear Dodge
Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness. Blending with black produces no change.

Overlay
Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.

Soft Light
Darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image.

If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened as if it were burned in. Painting with pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area but does not result in pure black or white.

Hard Light
Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the image.

If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened, as if it were screened. This is useful for adding highlights to an image. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened, as if it were multiplied. This is useful for adding shadows to an image. Painting with pure black or white results in pure black or white.

Vivid Light
Burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.

Linear Light
Burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.

Pin Light
Replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.

Difference
Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change.

Exclusion
Creates an effect similar to but lower in contrast than the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color values. Blending with black produces no change.

Hue
Creates a result color with the luminance and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.

Saturation
Creates a result color with the luminance and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color. Painting with this mode in an area with no (0) saturation (gray) causes no change.

Color
Creates a result color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.

Luminosity
Creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates an inverse effect from that of the Color mode.

I will, thanks

Great PS work....I love that software. I agree you can sure get allot out of some pretty uninteresting photos with some photoshop work. Thanks for the inspiration.

I am always impressed by the creativity of others ... I have a hard enough time just trying to get my "normal" images to look good!

When I first did these using film it took 24 hours to dupe the slide & get results back, so the total process took about a week. Now it takes 20 minutes in PS. That is SO cool!
I'm glad you liked these. I'll post some more in "Nature" as I copy more slides & hope to see some of your efforts, too.

Excellent work there.

Never tried blending shots like that. I should have a fair selection now.

The easiest way I've found to keep track of what each blend mode will do with a particular pic is to cycle through them with Shift+Alt+ (+ or -) to see the results. After a while you get a feel for what they will do.

An excellent tutorial on Blend Modes:
Photoshop's Five Essential Layer Blend Modes For Photo Editing