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Table Of Contents
Suggested uses: The Soft Light blend mode is useful for softly tinting a background image
by mixing it with the colors in a foreground image.
Hard Light
Whites and blacks in the foreground image 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 differently 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 affected by the Hard Light blend mode is important.
Boxes object on top Monkey object on top
Vivid Light
Vivid Light is similar to the Hard Light blend mode, with two exceptions. The first is that
midrange color values are mixed together more intensely. The second is that whites and
blacks from either overlapping image are preserved in the end result.
Note: Dithering can cause overlapping areas of solid white and solid black.
304 Chapter 7 Basic Compositing