Datasheet

2 chapter 1 ■ Tools for Building Your Masterpiece
Using Blending Modes
For right-brainers, blending modes open entirely new doors that perhaps you haven’t con-
sidered. For example, you can quickly collage two images by placing them in layers and
experimenting with the blending modes for just the right mix.
Blending modes for layers simply tell Photoshop how the pixels in one layer will inter-
act with the pixels in the layers beneath. You knew that already, though, right? Sure you
did; at least, you probably already know if you have spent any time with Photoshop. As you
work through the next few chapters, you’ll use various blending modes. For each new mode
that’s introduced, you’ll find a short definition.
Instead of rambling on about how you should use them, I’ll show a few examples of
how you can use them to your advantage.
Blending Landscapes
From this book’s CD-ROM, open the images mesa.jpg and sunset.jpg (see Figures 1.1 and
1.2). Here you have two images of similar tone and theme. You might consider what these
two photos would look like merged. To check that out, have one photo serve as the founda-
tion image, and paste the other photo into a new layer in that document (see Figure 1.3).
Each blending mode, when applied to the sunset layer, will give a different result. You
might think that the Overlay mode would produce a good mix of the two images, so check
it out! Figure 1.4 shows the image with the sunset layer set to Overlay.
Personally I love the results of this blend: the addition of the clouds and color varia-
tion to the mesa’s backdrop is simply stunning. This wouldn’t be much of an experiment if
we stopped here, however.
Figure 1.3 Place both images into
the same document for merging.
Figure 1.1 Choose images to blend together. Here’s the
first image.
Figure 1.2 The second image
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