Video Tutorial on Blend If Sliders

[gmitchel]

I made an eight minute video introduction to the Blend If sliders. I use the on every photo I sharpen to protect extreme highlights and shadows. They are also helpful for blending photos, etc.

I find most of the intros to the Blend If sliders to be really confusing. I hope this video tutorial helps.

http://www.thelightsright.com/BlendIfSettings

Enjoy!

Mitch

[Swampy]

Good stuff, Mitch! Thanks!

[Markzebra]

Actually thats an overcomplex view of blend-if, and he's applied it in slightly the wrong way, to both underlying and layer itself. When both have the same brightness values (ie they are duplicates of each other) there' s no point in this.

[gmitchel]

How is it overly-complex? If you're going to be constructive in your critique, you might want to explain.

(Why not take the time and tell us how you'd explain them?)

Only one example had the same settings for both This Layer and Underlying Layer. There are good reasons for setting Blend Ifs that way. It will restrict every pixel, whether they start or end that way to a certain range of values.

The only time there would be no point, is when the Blend If sliders for both This Layer ad That Layer are pushed back to the extremes of 0 and 255. Otherwise, there is always a point to setting the Blend If sliders. Even when they duplicate each other.

Cheers,

Mitch

[Markzebra]

The reason I'm suspicious that you don't understand - in your example you have only one layer visible, your sharpening layer, and you are applying blend-if using the underlying sliders. Something would have to be visible on the underlying layers, and this must be DIFFERENT in content to your sharpening layer. Different in terms of luminosity. Otherwise moving the underlying sliders has no additional value or effect above what can be achieved with the current layer sliders. Having two layers with the same luminosity content (duplicates) and then applying blend if to the top layer using the "underlying" sliders…there's no point.

The underlying sliders are only for very unusual situations where you need the top layer (or adjustment layer) to respond in a very controlled way to any potential changes underneath it. You would very rarely need to apply both types of blend-if to a single layer.

[gmitchel]

Your comments about what I am demonstrating and how Blend If works are incorrect.

My examples are not limited to the Underlying Layer slider. I demonstrate both sliders.

Here is what Photoshop Help says:

"The sliders in the Blending Options dialog box control which pixels from the active layer and the underlying visible layers appear in the final image. For example, you can drop dark pixels out of the active layer or force bright pixels from the underlying layers to show through. You can also define a range of partially blended pixels to produce a smooth transition between blended and unblended areas. "

This is 100% consistent with what I teach in my video tutorial on the Blend If sliders.

(1) This Layer is used to drop out pixels from the active layer, which allows the pixels from the underlying layer(s) to replace them.

(2) Underlying Layer determines which pixels from the underlying layers(s) punch through and replace those in the active layer.

What I was attempting to demonstrate was where the Blend If sliders have an effect. Yes, you would have an unsharpened version on the image underneath in a real world example.

Cheers,

Mitch