Blending mode tips

Hi today I’m going to show you how I use blending modes in my art.

Blending modes are found in many photo editing, drawing and video editing software.

Blending modes mix the selected layer and the layer below them by altering their color and luminosity.

1. Normal Blending Mode

When you create a new layer or import an image, Normal blending mode is the default mode.

Normal Blending Mode simply shows the selected layer as it is. We can’t see the layer beneath it.

When we lower it’s opacity it will become transparent.

Tip: Change the opacity of the selected layer to see the result.

2. Multiply Blending Mode

This blending mode darkens the base layer on the basis of dark colors on the blend layer. This mode multiplies the color of the blend layer with the base layer. It can be used for creating shadows and dark areas in paintings.

Tip: while using Multiply blend mode do not pick a very dark color for the blend layer. The dark color will become even darker and the result will be intense.

3. Screen Blending Mode

This blending mode brightens the colors. It can be used for highlights and glow effects. It work like Multiply blend mode but opposite since it multiplies the light areas and make them brighter.

Screen Blending Mode hides black color and only shows light colors.

4. Color Dodge and Linear Light Blending Mode

This two blending mode are similar since they both are brighter than screen. They both give a very intense result by overexposing the image so you will have to lower the layers opacity.

Color dodge will brighten while saturating the bright color areas whereas Linear dodge will brighten the image. Giving a faded look. You can try both effects for highlights, glowing objects and light rays and see which one look better.

5. Overlay Blending

This blending mode brightens the light areas and darkens the dark areas. It doesn’t affect the middle gray colors. It is also used often in photo editing to get more contrast.

 

Duplicate your drawing and change the above layers blend mode to Overlay. This will brighten the highlights and darken your shadows.

Blending modes makes the process faster and more efficient. There are many more ways to use this blend modes according to your needs by mixing them and playing around with their opacity. There are also more blending modes out there that I didn’t tackle but it’s up to you to explore them. Test them out and you might get amazing results just by changing the blend modes.