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294 Chapter 3 Basic Compositing
Object Blend Modes
The following section describes how blend modes affect individual objects. All blend
modes are presented in the order in which they appear in the Blend Mode pop-up
menu.
Normal
The default for objects. The only transparency in an object set to Normal is caused by
its Opacity parameter or by an alpha channel that is assigned to it.
Subtract
Subtract darkens all overlapping colors. Whites in the foreground image go black, while
whites in the background image invert overlapping color values in the foreground
image, creating a negative effect.
Blacks in the foreground image become transparent, while blacks in the background
image are preserved.
About the Examples in This Section
Most of the examples in this section are created using the following two reference
images. The resulting “Mondrian Monkey” illustrates how differently the color values
from each image interact when using each blend mode. When examining the results,
pay particular attention to the white and black areas of the colored squares, as well as
the highlights and shadows in the monkey. These show you how each blend mode
treats the whites and blacks in an image.
The other brighter and darker colors serve to illustrate each blend mode’s handling of
overlapping midrange color values. The yellow, gray, orange, and blue squares, in
particular, all have very different color and luminance values that contrast sharply
from example to example.
Important: Depending on the blend mode, layer and group ordering may or may not
be important. Certain blend modes behave differently depending on which image is
on top.
Boxes object Monkey object