Blend modes can easily and quickly modify part or the entire image if you know how to apply them. If you’ve ever used the paintbrush or clone tool and didn’t get the expected result its probably due to the tool’s blend mode.

Blend modes control how pixels in an image are affected by a painting tool, editing tool or layer. They’re found in the layers palette and options tool bar and are set to Normal as the default. (see Figure 1 - mode changed to Multiply)

In the following examples, the background layer has been duplicated and its blend mode has been changed to alter the appearance of the layer below.

Example 1 is the original Image

Example 2 is set to multiply (Results are darker)

Example 3 is set to screen (Results are lighter)

Example 4 is set to overlay (Combination of multiply & screen depending upon the base color - preserves highlights and shadows)

Blend modes can also be applied to solid colors, either by altering the blend mode while painting or by changing the layer’s blend mode.

Figure 2 shows Layer 1 is set to normal, hiding the background layer.


Example 5 shows layer 1 is set to multiply

Example 6 shows layer 1 is set to screen

Example 7 shows layer 1 is set to overlay

Example 8 shows layer 1 is set to hue (retains luminance & saturation and the hue of the blend color)

Example 9 shows layer 1 is set to color (similar to hue, but preserves gray levels - good for tinting color images)

In all these examples the modified layer has an opacity of 100%, but that can be changed to lessen the effects to the layer below. If you didn’t want to alter the entire image, just apply a layer mask to hide areas you don’t want to affect.

Now go have fun with blend modes!