Back to Dye Printing Tricks & Tips
Try 'em, you might like 'em! When you double click on several of the tools (Air Brush, Paint Brush, Rubber Stamp, History Brush, Eraser Tool, Pencil Tool, etc.) the specific palette will pop up. The upper left corner usual says "Normal." No, it's not a self-affirmation moment for graphic artists everywhere. If you click and hold you'll get a plethora (a myriad, a bunch) of options that are amazingly unworkable for the current task at hand. But, try 'em. Next time you may need that effect! (For examples of the modes affect on one layer and another click here.)
The same thing about those Layer Modes. In your layer's palette the default is "Normal" but that doesn't mean you have to stay there. How the upper layer is set is how it will "mix with" the layer below it. I wanted to make it rain on a photo, so I made a streaky black and white layer "screen" into a cloudy background. Only the white drops showed up.
Each tool has its own quirks, so not every mode acts quite the same. When you apply these effects PhotoShop considers every pixel you touch. Watch for your "base colors" as you apply "blend colors" as you work the tool to create the "result colors." And don't think that of these "blends" the same way you can do "blend modes" with your Layers Palette. That's more involved with the entire layer.
Normal: Edits the existing colors based on what options you may have chosen.
Threshold: Shows up when your mode is either Bitmap or Indexed Color, acts like "Normal."
Dissolve: When used. if you set the opacity to anything less than 100% it will randomly scatter pixels to give you a rougher edge to your brush strokes. Play with the opacity to see it act really weird. At 85% for example, most of the pixels are roughed up and 15% are left alone. Set at 30% you mess with nearly a of the pixels and 70% are left standing.
Behind: Tells you how many days in arrears you are to your deadline. No, really, this mode works with opacity like this; if a pixel is 100% opaque it is affected by the brush, other percentages are affected in an inverse proportion. (Too Mr. Scott from Star Trek, yet? Okay, for example, a pixel that is a ghost at 30% opacity will be painted with 70% of the blending color. If a pixel next to it is 80% opaque, it will get a mere dusting of 20% of the blending color.)
Clear: Only available for the Line and Bucket Tool. This option tells PhotoShop how "clear" to make a line or spot. Again it uses the opacity value inverse (see above). If your opacity happens to be set at 64% then the amount of "clearness" will be 36%. I know they could make this more difficult, but then all the instructions would have to be set in Sanskrit.
Multiply: It makes things darker by multiplying the brightness level. (I've got an ice cream headache already.) Here's how it works, though I doubt anyone will care: Photoshop considers everything on a brightness value of 256 possibilities that go from 0 being solid black to the brightest white being 255. For loopy reasons known only to math people generating non-math-loving programs, if you have a brightness level of 185, Photoshop considers it a fraction: 185/255. For those of you who still remember high school math, if you multiply a fraction by a fraction you get an even smaller fraction. So, when you use the Multiply mode you are doing just that; a smaller fraction would be closer to the value of Zero which is black, remember? Now the juicy part. If you are messing with pixels that are the brightest white, those pixels will go nowhere. If you are messing with pixels that are solid black, you can't go any darker, so they too will go nowhere. IF you are using a neutral gray it will darken the pixels without changing the hue--great for adding shadows to an object! (See you knew if you stayed with it you'd find a use for this mode!)
Screen: Same as Multiply but it lightens the pixels using the same fraction-value-multiplying headache detailed above. Again solid white or black are not affected. Also again if you want to add highlights without messing with the hue, this is the way to go. You can make an apple shinier without bleaching out the color.(See the last two sentences above.)
Overlay: Depending on the base color you are messing with, this mode acts just like Multiply or Screen. It takes the base color towards the blending colors and increases the amount of the contrast betwixt the two. Huh? Darker pixels tend to go darker, and lighter pixels tend to go lighter, neutral grays are pretty much left alone. It's like you are overlaying another duplicate transparency on your overhead projecter from eighth grade science...
Soft Light: Overlay suffering from anorexia. See "Overlay" above. A not so intense version.
Hard Light: Overlay on steroids. See "Overlay" above. A more intense version.
Color Dodge: Lighter pixels are changed more radically, much like using the Dodge tool (the black lollipop). Darker pixels are not as easily noticed, and black is left alone.
Color Burn: Darker pixels are changed more radically, again like using the Burn tool (the toggled tool of the lollipop that looks like an "O" hand in Sign Language). Lighter pixels are barely touched.
Darken: More math, this time based on the RGB values to darken the pixels. (Of the three channels--R, G, B--in both the base and blending colors, Photoshop chooses the darkest channel's value to create a new value for the end result)
Lighten: Like Darken you can lighten the pixels using a math equation of the RGB values. (Of the three channels--R, G, B--in both the base and blending colors, Photoshop chooses the lightest channel's value to create a new value for the end result.)
Difference: More math, this time picking the brightest value of the three RGB channels and subtracting the brightest from the darkest.
Exclusion: Like Difference only shoots the pixels towards gray.
Hue: PhotoShop replaces the base color's hue with the blend color's hue while leaving the levels of saturation and brightness alone.
Saturation: PhotoShop replaces the base color's saturation with the blend color's saturation while leaving the levels of hue and brightness alone.
Color: Hue and Saturation are replaced with the blend color. (Good for changing a color of an object while preserving small details.)
Luminosity: PhotoShop replaces the base color's brightness with the blend color's brightness while leaving the levels of hue and saturation alone.