5.1.1

Chapter 7 Basic compositing 240
The Soft Light blend mode is useful for softly tinting a background image by mixing it with
the colors in a foreground image.
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Hard Light: Causes whites and blacks in the foreground image to block the background image.
Whites and blacks in the background image interact with overlapping midrange color values
in the foreground image. Overlapping midrange color values are mixed together dierently
depending on the brightness of the background color values. Lighter background midrange
values are mixed by screening. Darker background midrange values are mixed together by
multiplying. The visible result is that darker color values in the background image intensify the
foreground image, while lighter color values in the background image wash out overlapping
areas in the foreground image. The order of two layers aected by the Hard Light blend mode
is important.
Boxes object on top Chimp object on top
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Vivid Light: Similar to the Hard Light blend mode, with two exceptions: Vivid Light mixes
midrange color values together more intensely, and preserves whites and blacks from either
overlapping image in the end result. (Dithering can cause overlapping areas of solid white
and solid black.) Overlapping midrange color values are mixed together dierently depending
on the brightness of the background color values. Lighter midrange values become washed
out, while the contrast of darker midrange color values is increased. The overall eect is more
pronounced than with the Hard Light blend mode. Reversing the two overlapping images
results in subtle dierences in how the overlapping midrange color values are mixed together.
Boxes object on top Chimp object on top
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