Layer Blending Mode Videos

[gmitchel]

I've been working on a series of brief videos that focus on the Photoshop layer blending modes. One video per blending mode, most around fiveminutes each.

I've finished six so far. I'd like to know what people think.

The next batch will look at the constrast modes: Overlay, Soft Light, and Hard Light. Then on to the more specialized blending modes.

Each video describes the blend, looks briefly at the math, and then has an example and discussion of the practical uses for the blending mode.

http://www.thelightsright.com/NormalLayerBlendingMode
http://www.thelightsright.com/DissolveLayerBlendingMode
http://www.thelightsright.com/DarkenLayerBlendingMode
http://www.thelightsright.com/LightenLayerBlendingMode
http://www.thelightsright.com/MultiplyLayerBlendingMode
http://www.thelightsright.com/ScreenLayerBlendingMode

Cheers,

Mitch

[LonK]

Very informative, Mitch. Thank you very much. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Concerning darken/lighten being applied on a channel per channel basis, is there a way to apply these to the combined luminosity value?

[Michel B]

If I understand you question well, you want to use the lighten/darken mode based on the combined luminosity of each of the source and target layer.
One way to do it could be to add a hue/sat adjustment with sat -100 layer linked with each layer, and to recover the color information, place a copy of the source layer in color mode above.
Of course, the hue/sat adjustment layers could be replaced by B&W adjustment layers or B&W gradient map adjustment layers.

[gmitchel]

Originally Posted by LonK

Very informative, Mitch. Thank you very much. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Concerning darken/lighten being applied on a channel per channel basis, is there a way to apply these to the combined luminosity value?

Photo-Paint looks at all three pixels. Figures out which is lowest. Then takes all three values from the pixel with that channel value.

Picture Publisher and PhotoImpact do as your suggest. They calculate the overall Luminance value and use that. Then the the channel values for the darker pixel.

The methods used by Photo-Paint, Picture Publisher, and PhotoImpact do not create a third color. They use the color from either the active layer or from what's visible underneath.

If you use Photoshop CS4, the Darker Color blend compares the total of the three channels and takes the darker color.

Cheers,

Mitch

[LonK]

Thanks for that followup info, Mitch.

Picture Publisher was the first photo editor I ever used, in the 90's. After that, I used PhotoImpact for several years. I guess that explains why I'm so used to their mode processing. When I finally got Photoshop CS3 less than a year ago, I did notice the difference. While CS3 does offer Darker Color, which works with color rather than luminosity values, it is a whole different animal and typically, I find so far, of limited usefulness.

Again, I find your videos very information, always very clearly presented. Thanks for sharing.