Photoshop Tutorial: Layer Mode

The time is ready for DivitoDesign to publish more “webdesign”-related tutorials. That’s why me, Robbert, am going to write the Photoshop Tutorial articles that will describe the functions and usage of Adobe’s Photoshop in detail.

Today you can learn something about the layer mode, a function of Photoshop that has been around for a long time and that has many possibilities. With the layer modes, you can blend different images in each other.

Open up Photoshop

For this tutorial, I use the Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended version, but if you are using a older version, that shouldn’t be a problem for the process.

1. Open a new file (ctrl+N). I’ve chosen a width and height of 500px. Background white.

2. Import (or paste) an image into a new layer. For this tutorial I’ve chosen this really cute baby:
click here

3. Open/import another new image, in a new layer. In this article I took a nice wallpaper of fire.
click here

4. Make sure your flames are in your top layer, and the baby’s in the one below that.

5. In your layer palette, you see that there’s a clickable box saying ‘normal’. This is your layer mode. See figure 1.0 for a example.

By playing with this layer mode, you can get several cool effects. I listed a couple of them at the end of this article.

figure 1.0

6. Start experimenting with these settings/opacity’s (the amount of seethrough of a layer) and you’ll get some cool results! You can find the opacity just right from the layer mode.

Color Burn

Darker Color

Overlay

Difference

If you have made a figure that is worth mentioning here, please show it in the comments below!

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