Photoshop Tutorial

A Quick Photoshop Tutorial about Blending Modes

Level: Beginners

I have discovered about blending modes more than a year after I started designing. It was mind blowing for me because I didn't know that it existed. Even my scrapping style has changed. Before, what I will do is change the opacity of my object to have a little transparency. It was okay but it looked flat. I was looking for more. So, today, I will show you the blending modes that are frequently used when scrapping. These are Multiply, Screen, Overlay and Soft Light.

You can download the things that we will need here. It consists of a paper and an element.

Are you ready? Let's start!

 

The Blending Modes is located at the upper left corner of your Layer tabs. It is in its default mode "Normal"

1. Open a new document.

2. Open also the paper and element freebie for this tutorial.

3. Drag the paper first on to your new document and then your element. Your paper will be automatically named as Layer 1 and on top of it is the element as Layer 2.

4. Just for easy reference I renamed Layer 1 to 'Paper' and Layer 2 to 'Element'. If you want to do this too, just right click on the layer that you want to rename and click 'Layer Properties'. A new window will open and you can now specify a new name for your layer.

5. You have to be on your 'Element' layer so you need to click on the layer 'Element'. Then click on the little arrow right beside the text 'Normal'. You will now see a drop down menu listing all the different Blending Modes. Just click on Overlay and....

Tadaaaa!!! You just blended your element to your paper. Its pretty easy and very quick huh? Now, you can experiment on the other blending modes. You can also play with the opacity and even duplicate or resize your element and move it around for different effects.

Basically we are finish with the quick tutorial. But if you want to learn what is the difference of Multiply, Screen, Overlay and Soft Light, please read further...

As you can see, when you click on the little arrow beside 'Normal' you will see all the list of the Blending Modes and they are grouped into six:

For this tutorial we will only tackle the ones that are most widely used in scrapping.

Darkening Modes

The Darkening Modes makes your object appear darker. In this group, I use Multiply the most. What it does is it multiplies the dark areas twice producing a darker image and the light areas unchanged.

Lightening Modes

The Lightening Modes makes your object appear lighter. In this group, I use Screen the most. Basically it is the opposite of Multiply. It brightens the base layer with the blend layer.

Contrast Modes

The Contrast Modes makes your object appear lighter and darker at the same time. In this group, I use Overlay and Soft Light the most. Overlay intensifies the dark areas and highlights more the light while Soft Light is very much like Overlay but it is more subtle.

Here is a glimpse of the blending modes together.

Remember, you can always mix and match, you can blend a picture on paper, paper on paper, a wordart on a photo, an overlay on a wordart, the possibilities are endless! Have fun with experimenting all the blending modes and you'll be amazed with the effects that it can give to your layout.

Did you find this tutorial helpful? Send your comments and suggestions to feifeistuff {at} gmail {dot} com. If you have some layouts done regarding this tutorial or any additional tips, you can send it through my email or you can post it on fei-fei's stuff facebook fan page.

Enjoy Scrapping!