Blending Modes // 9
esting (or jarring) color shifts that the Color Dodged layer will impose on the image underneath. Classic Color Dodge has an anomaly: If it is applied to the last visible layer of a stack, the final composite will go black. Further differences between Color Dodge and Classic Color Dodge emerge when you reduce the opacity of the layer they are applied to; you might find that Classic Color Dodge works better at reduced opacities.
Lighting Modes These modes, shown in [Ex.00c], have the subjective result of intensifying the contrast and saturation in a scene. If the layer they are applied to is 50% gray, most will have no effect; any lighter, darker, or color variation from this, and things get interesting. Several of them are our favorites for creating a rich image that contains characteristics of both source layers.
TIP
Altering Lighting To add the impression of animated lighting to a scene, find a layer that has slowly changing white areas over black, experiment with Opacity, and composite with Overlay mode over your original scene. This effect is demonstrated in [Ex.05a], [Ex.05b] and [Ex.06].
Overlay Technically, parts of the image darker than 50% luminance are multiplied, and the parts brighter than 50% are screened. In plain English, the lighter areas of the top layer will lighten the corresponding areas of the bottom layer, going to white; darker areas in the top layer will darken the corresponding areas in the bottom layer, going to black; areas that are 50% gray in the overlaid layer have no effect on the underlying layer. The result is increased contrast and particularly saturation, with the shadows and highlights still present, though altered. The stacking order makes a difference: The underlying layer appears to be more prominent in the result. This mode is as close as they come to an “instant cool� effect, making something interesting out of almost any two layers. Once you get past the gee-whiz factor, start looking for layers that have good contrast between light colorful areas and shadows as being Overlay candidates; those dark areas will end up dark in the result, and the lighter areas will end up with an interesting color mix of both layers. Comp [Ex.06] shows one application: The light playing across the bodybuilder’s back is further infused with the color of the layer above (AB_LightEffects), while the dark areas remain in the shadows. Given the increase in saturation Overlay usually brings, you might need to back off the opacity of the moded layer. But depending on your sources, you could also increase the intensity of the effect by duplicating the moded layer.
A
B
Overlay mode increases contrast, and as a result, apparent saturation.
A colorful animated layer (A) applied in Overlay mode over a movie with strong light and shadows (B) results in the light areas being affected, while the shadows stay dark (C). The Tint effect can also be applied to the lighting layer to convert it to black and white and remove the color cast. Footage courtesy Artbeats/ Light Effects and The Body.
C
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