Photoshop Blending Modes Tutorial

Photography Tips

Blending modes exponentially augment the power of the layers in Photoshop. When you use a blending mode, you’re taking the pixels from one layer and then blending them with pixels from another layer in order to produce a different effect. Blending modes are extremely useful for the purpose of increasing contrast, saturating colors, blending layers for special effects, and so on:

There are currently 27 different blending modes in Photoshop (30 if you count the two extra modes for the Paint tools and the one for the Layer groups) from the original 19 in Photoshop 3.0 when layers were first introduced back in 1994. The video above presents 41 minute tutorial beginning with an introduction about blending modes going into more advanced topics on how to work with the different blending modes.

Before you begin your lesson, as Photoshop Training Channel explains it’s important to know the following fundamental aspects about blending, as summarized in this image:

Watch the rest of the video for a comprehensive guide on the different blending modes and how to work with them.