When working with layer blending, you're probably confused by the number of options available and the differences between them... On top of that, several of them can have very similar results!! Let's look at a simple guide to select the one that best suits us and how to use them to simplify our workflow.

 

General Uses of Layers

To simplify these selections as much as possible, we can separate the list of blending modes into four groups: light and brightness, shadow, color changes, and tonal correction.

 

 

The simplest process for painting an illustration is to think in terms of 1)Base color, 2)Lights, and 3)Shadows. That's why it's useful to identify which types of layer blending we need for each stage. Keep in mind that each layer can have a different opacity percentage! This is very important for balancing tones and controlling the subtlety of lights and shadows.

In the following example, I show you the list of layers and how the modes are distributed according to their function.

 

ATTENTION: to correct the color in any of these stages, remember to use the Tonal Correction Modes from the Edit menu that modify the color of the currently selected layer! They can help you try different tones by using copies of the same layer to see different results and choose. In the following example, I only changed the color of the blue light layer to make it green.

 

How to Choose the Blending Mode. Lights, Shadows, and Color Changes.

Although my painting process is quite chaotic and I end up using several blending layers for each stage (base color, lights, shadows), I still try to choose layers and colors following the basic 3-step painting structure. I also add layers according to the mood I want to convey; for which different types of light or color will be necessary.

In any case, there are certain blending modes that I use more than others:

 

           -Layers with blending modes for lighting:

At this point, it is important to consider what color you are painting with to achieve different tones with the blending modes. For example:

 

In this case, this layer is in “Hard Light” mode... but what if we put it in another blending mode to create lights? I will test it with both the orange light example and the green light example.

 

Orange Light:

 

Green Light:

In both cases, I marked with a red border the modes I consider most useful for lighting, as the others get too close to white or modify the color too much for my taste.

 

The difficult part is that, despite having reduced the preferred lighting blending modes from 14 to 8, there are still many variables to consider. Personally, I always end up using more than one of these modes in the same image, as I achieve different effects. If you observe carefully, the final image of this drawing has two layers of light blending modes, and an extra layer of sky blue light in normal mode.

 

I also want to clarify that my way of painting most of the time consists more of painting lights and shadows in specific places, instead of tinting the entire image with a single tonality and then continuing to work on lights and shadows. However, that depends on the complexity I want to give to the lighting. For example, if there were a very strong red light, the best way to convey this quickly is by tinting the entire drawing with a layer of reddish tones with the appropriate blending mode (Multiply, for example)

1) The blue light layer in “Normal” mode helps to outline the figure and separate it from the background, while complementing the orange color that predominates in the character's fur.

 

2) The next layer, a soft orange color, being in “Strong Light” blending mode, allows me to saturate the orange color of the fur in the areas I consider most important, in this case, the face. By marking with this color the areas opposite to those marked by the previous sky blue layer, the contrast of these colors highlights the volume.

 

3) The third light layer is subtly painted with soft orange in the areas of most direct light (forehead and chest), and with soft pink where the light would reflect (for example, on the chin). By placing this layer in “Color Dodge (Glow)” mode, I further saturate the colors at the points where the light is strongest. To prevent this glow from being too intense, I set this layer to 72% opacity.

 

Conclusion: One layer to give reflected light of an opposite color; another layer to give general soft light and begin to define volumes; a third light layer to mark the most illuminated and saturated areas.

 

However, many artists choose to use a single blending mode for each stage; for example, one of the most used is the “Overlay” mode. In the following example, the blue light layer is in Overlay mode, and the other two light layers are merged into a single layer also in “Overlay” mode. The image on the left uses the modes I explained earlier so you can compare both results:

 

As you will see, these are two very different results, mainly in terms of color saturation. However, these results also appear this way because the layers are painted in the same manner and with the same colors, but only with a different blending mode. It is a matter of taste and experience which will be most appropriate for your work. Especially for beginners, I recommend not committing too much to the same blending mode until you have experimented enough to know your favorite.

 

-Layers with blending modes for shading:

 

Here, something similar happens to what we saw with lighting layers, with the difference that there are far fewer options and more distinct effects for each blending mode. To paint these shadows before applying the blending mode, I recommend trying very light violet, pink, or beige. These colors blend best with other tones, but that concordance will depend on the base tone. For example, if the base color is yellow, a violet shadow would result in a very muddy color; in these cases, a light brown works better. Let's see how the same shadow blends differently depending on its color, using the “Multiply” blending mode:

 

Regarding the most common blending modes for shading, we can see the following 5 options:

 

Again, I marked with red the ones I consider most useful. The “Darken” mode is too subtle to be considered a proper shadow; the “Subtract” mode is too dark, also breaking the color harmony. Even so, the most frequent and the one that the vast majority of artists use almost exclusively is the “Multiply” mode, as it best combines the color painted for shading with the base tone of the image. However, in the case of this illustration I am using as an example, I opted for the “Color Burn” mode as it resulted in a more vibrant tone. For comparison, on the left I show you the version with “Color Burn” mode, and on the right, “Multiply” mode, on the same layer and with the same tone.

 

However, since the shadow was too dark and cold for my taste, I added one more layer, in a mode that reacts very differently depending on what is underneath: “Overlay”. In this case, the layer is painted in a very light brown color and helps to slightly modify the color of the shadow towards a brighter tone.

 

But I still have something else to say about Multiply mode... It can also be used for lighting! First, paint the entire surface with the tone you want to use for shading, then you can extract light by painting with a near-white tone in the areas you want to illuminate.

 

-Layers with blending modes that modify colors:

 

At this point, I must clarify that these are the modes I use the least, and I only resort to them when I can't find the right color for what I'm doing. These blending modes help me expand the color selection range a bit, but they are difficult to predict if you don't have much experience using them. To show you the results achieved with this, I will modify the blending mode of the blue light layer, which was initially in normal mode.

 

These blending modes work in relation to the lower layers, which is why they vary greatly depending on the color of each layer and the color beneath them. Therefore, always remember to experiment with different colors to achieve different effects, at least while you are practicing (I insist that you use the Tonal Correction modes from the Edit menu!).

In this case, I think the “Hard Mix” and “Divide” modes are the most useful, as they modify the color in an extreme way that can yield very interesting results to test. The “Lighten Color” and “Darken Color” modes simply make the tone appear in front of or behind the color beneath it, depending on whether it is lighter or darker than the tone painted on that layer, which is why few changes are seen in the examples.

 

-Working with the exception to the rule

 

Sometimes nothing we've seen before applies specifically, or we don't know how to identify which of those modes will help the most. I recommend again trying out blending modes to find ways of painting that you might not otherwise consider.

I will share an example of another drawing where I wanted to vary the color of the lights and shadows on the character, but I didn't know what colors to apply or where. At this point of uncertainty, extreme blending modes helped me define those colors. The mode I ultimately chose in this case was “Difference” (I showed an example of this in the modes for creating lights and glows that I explained above).

 

Having painted the shadows with light blue, the mode that I put in the light section called “Difference” helps a lot to create a vivid color shadow that varies between blue and purple when combined with the orange-brown of the lower layer.

-Layers with blending modes that use tonal correction modes:

These modes are a bit more difficult to see and require a bit more development to understand how they work. I'll start by showing you a detail where the difference from normal mode can be better appreciated:

 

The “Hue” (Hue) mode applies the color to the underlying layer, preserving the brightness and saturation of the underlying layer.

The “Saturation” mode applies the saturation of the painted tone to the color of the underlying layer, maintaining brightness.

The “Color” mode applies the painted color and brightness, preserving the saturation of the underlying layer.

The “Brightness” (Brightness) mode applies the brightness of the painted color, but preserves the color and saturation of the underlying layer.

 

In this case, I have to say that I only use one of them: the “Hue” mode is especially useful for checking if the light structure is clear enough in your image (i.e., if it reads well even without colors that mark the difference between one area and another). To do the latter, what you have to do is create a layer above all other layers, paint it completely black, and set its blending mode to “Hue”. This way, you can easily convert the image to grayscale without losing or modifying any layer, and thus easily see the image's light structure.

 

 

On the other hand, the “Color” mode can also be used to do the reverse of what I just described. Many artists begin their work entirely in grayscale and then apply a new layer in “Color” mode on top of everything. This way, you can paint directly on that layer, and it will be colored while maintaining the brightness and saturation of the underlying layer. For example, I was able to convert a drawing originally painted with black Indian ink into colors:

 

This is ideal for combining manual and digital techniques because it preserves even the paper's texture!

 

Generating Different Atmospheres

Now that we've seen all the blending modes, it's time to see how and when to use them. I'm going to show you different modifications I made based on the same drawing to see how I modified its environment and adapted it to different situations.

Keep in mind that:

• In the starting image, the only thing that changes is the background; the character is always the same, with the same colors.

-In all these examples, I used a layer completely covered with color or gradients to homogeneously modify the tone of the figure and background. These layers are usually above the main figure, in multiply mode.

-In almost all these cases, the light and shadow layers are painted with colors extracted from the background, modified in their saturation or luminosity. Consider that the tones of the environment reflect and influence the colors of all elements in the image, so it is usually good not to incorporate colors that are not present. In the last example of this tutorial, you will see that I added a very artificial green backlight, which is not visible in the base color image because the figure covers it.

 

Always remember that the environment reflects light with the color of the object, so it's important to define what atmosphere we are trying to paint to know what color the lights and reflections are. Even the sky casts shadows and lights with blue tones!

 

Conclusions

And now it's a matter of experimenting! I have some recommendations for beginners:

 

-Don't worry if you use “too many” layers, the important thing is the result, and the process will become shorter as you practice.

 

-Many artists have such good control over blending modes that they use the same 3 or 4 modes for all their work, regardless of the results they are looking for. And that's great! But don't pressure yourselves if the modes other artists use don't appeal to you or aren't enough... the important thing is to find your own way of painting and using the tools.

 

-It helps a lot to always have references! Especially for learning to identify the color of light or shadow in a given lighting condition.

 

Thank you for reading this far! I hope it was useful and that you are encouraged to play with blending modes <3

Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions or criticisms that help me better structure the tutorials!

 

If you like my work, you can follow me on:

Instagram: @barbara_brutti_ilustraciones

Furaffinity: @barbara_brutti

Deviantart: @Attaroa

Artfol: @barbarabruttiilustra

 

I also want to thank my friend Malvina who always helps me correct the tutorials! You can see her work on Instagram @malvilustra