Before I started blogging, I followed two blogs religiously: Perez Hilton and Dooce. Anyway, I really liked the photos on Dooce, especially those on Daily Chuck. Then I noticed that some of her photos had a fuzzy, ethereal glow, and I wanted my photos to have the same fuzzy glow. I actually thought she was using a special camera with a special fuzzy glow lens to get that effect. While scouring her blog for more inspirational examples, I found her post explaining how she achieved that glow effect and all I needed was that neglected copy of Photoshop I rarely used at the time. That tutorial was my introduction to the Multiply Blending Mode. By the way, I’m still using that same version of Photoshop today — CS3!
It was several more years before I looked at the other blending modes. In this post, I’m going to show the effects between a colored layer and a black and white image — just for fun. You can see all the examples after the jump, or, if you want to watch a groovy animated gif version, click here.
How to Edit a Layer’s Blending Mode
Blending Modes determine how two layers affect and blend with each other. To add a blending mode to one one of your Photoshop Layers, open your Layers Palette (Window >> Layers).
Anatomical Hearts
By the way, I used Mellowmint’s Anatomical Textures in my examples and while I was creating the animated gif, I realized that the heart looked familiar. It was the same image used in my Anatomica Heart Necklace, which was one of my very first “Indie” purchases from a shop called Paraphernalia. You can still find the heart for sale on Big Cartel, in this pretty red.
Examples
In my example below, you’ll notice that some blending modes, like Hue and Saturation, don’t have any effect on the black and white image. Hue and saturation are properties of colored images and since there are no colors in a black and white image, there is no effect. You can check out this site or Adobe for more info on blending modes. Those sites can explain them better than I ever could!
mellowmint (noteworthy)
confetti brush (tutorial)
uma from myfonts
cooper black (osx native font)
