User Guide

Canvas 12 User Guide
Overlay: A front object’s color overlays colors in the background, while preserving
highlights and shadows. White and black in the background are not affected.
Soft Light: Underlying colors are lightened or darkened depending on the brightness of the
front color. Colors in front that are lighter than 50% gray lighten the underlying object.
Colors in front that are darker than 50% gray darken the underlying object.
Hard Light: Underlying colors are lightened or darkened depending on the brightness value
of the front color. Hard Light mode is similar to Soft Light. However, black in the front object
produces black; white in the front object produces white.
Darken: The color values of the front color replace the underlying color values if the front
color value is darker than the back color value. Black in the background appears unchanged;
the front color appears in place of white in the background.
Lighten: The color values of the front color replace the underlying color values if the front
color value is lighter than the back color value. White in the background appears unchanged;
the front color appears in place of black in the background.
Difference: The color value of the front and back colors are compared and the darker value
is subtracted from the lighter value. If the front and back colors are identical, the result is
black. If the front or back color is black, the other color does not change. If the front or back
color is white, the other color is inverted.
Dodge: Dodge mode compares the lightness values in each channel of the front and back
colors, and uses the lighter value from each channel for the result color. However, black is
not replaced by a lighter color. White in the front replaces all colors except black.
Burn: Burn mode compares the lightness values in each channel of the front and back
colors, and uses the darker value from each channel for the result color. However, white is
not replaced by a darker color. Black in front replaces all colors except white.
Color modes
Canvas calculates transfer mode effects by applying formulas to color values. Canvas performs these
calculations using RGB color values or CMYK color values.
For example, the formula for Multiply mode is Color 1 multiplied by Color 2. Canvas applies the
formula separately to each value that defines a color. In the case of RGB colors, Canvas applies the
formula separately to the red, green, and blue values. For CMYK colors, Canvas calculates the effect
on cyan, magenta, yellow, and black values.
The significance of the color space calculation is that the effect you see on screen could appear
completely different if the effect is printed in a different color space.
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