The perfect blending in Photoshop

In Photoshop, there's a technology-layer mix that's easy to use but not how many people really understand how it works. Sometimes, a layer mix can produce psychedelic effects. So, I suggest you take some time to study until you know how it works. The following approach is simple, but it helps to understand the mix: Create a new two layer on a blank background, fill it with a linear gradient of color, and fill the other layer with a radial gradient of different colors. Then double-click the top layer to bring up the layer style, where the default dialog box is the blending option. You can drag the slider below the blend color to see the top layer color display (this requires moving the slider on this layer) or display the color of the next layer through the active layer (the slider that needs to move the next layer). When you think you have understood it, try to anticipate the changes before moving the slider. If you practice long enough, there's no secret to mixing layers.

1. Open a picture in Photoshop. As you can see, the quality of this picture is not too good, and the pixels are mostly in the dark part. In order to save download time, this picture is greatly compressed, so the quality of the picture is affected, looks a bit mottled. (Figure 01)

Figure 01

3. Right-click the background layer of the Layers Panel, select Copy Layer from the pop-up menu, and copy four background copies. The quickest way to copy a layer is to drag the layer onto the Create new Layer button at the bottom of the layers panel.

3. After completing the work of the duplicate layer, select the bottom copy, which is the first copy layer on top of the background layer--replica 4, and, for ease of observation, turn off the visibility icon for other layers and double-click background copy 4 to open the Layer Style dialog box. If the blending option doesn't appear, click the first item in the style to select it.

Find the bottom of the dialog box with the blend color below this layer slider, drag the leftmost black triangle to the center until the number 40 is displayed on the grayscale bar. Then drag the small white triangle on the right side to the center and the number 60 on the gray bar. (Figure 02)

Figure 02

Hold down ALT, drag the left side of the black Triangle, move this section to the left, and see the above number displayed as 30/40, relaxing the mouse. Similarly, the white triangle is divided into two parts, with a value of 60/70 above. (Figure 03)

Figure 03

The pixels of the brightness value between the black triangle on the right and the white triangle on the left (40-60) will be fully blended; the pixels between the luminance values are gradually mixed, while pixels outside the two most outer-end sliders remain mixed and excluded from the final image.

In the general mix at the top of the dialog box, reduce the opacity to 50% (Figure 04) and click OK.

Figure 04

4. In the Layers panel, select the second copy layer on top of the background layer (copy 3) to change the layer blending color in the above method, but this time as shown in the following figure (Figure 05), change the opacity of its layer to 50%.

Figure 05

5. Select the third copy layer above the background layer (copy 2), as shown in the following figure (Figure 06), and change the blending options to reduce the opacity of the layer to 50%.

Figure 06

6. Select the top level copy, as shown in the following figure (Figure 07), change the blending options to reduce the opacity of the layer to 50%. As shown in the following image, (for the sake of observation, I added a layer with white padding on the background layer, but you know it doesn't exist.) ) (Figure 08)

Figure 07

Figure 08

7. Still select the top of the copy, adjust the level of color, the input levels are set to 0,1.98,255, to enhance the reflection of the petals part. When you adjust your image, drag the gray value slider until the image appears to have a noticeable effect. No need to be very precise, bright or dark is not a problem. You need to drag the slider while you look at the image and stop dragging the slider until you think the desired effect appears. This may not be accurate, but your feelings are the most important. (Figure 09)

Figure 09

8. Select Background Copy 2, adjust the levels, and set the grayscale value to 0.61, the same method as just now. The aim of this step is to further emphasize reflective reflection. (Figure 10)

Figure 10

9. Select Background Copy 3, adjust the levels, and set the grayscale value to 0.65. This is to deepen the dark area on the petals. (Figure 11)

Figure 11

10. Finally select the background copy 4, adjust the levels, and set the grayscale value to 1.94. There's not much to see here, and you'll know how it works.

I have said that you do not have to follow my parameters, as long as you feel that the right line, whim will often bring unexpected surprises.

11. Below, we want to blur each copy layer, select the Gaussian blur command, the radius set to 2.5 pixels, if your image resolution is high, you may want to set to 5 pixels or higher. With the same settings, each copy layer in addition to the background layer is obfuscated. (Figure 12)

Figure 12

12. Now, let's change the blending mode of each layer. For me, this is a difficult process to choose from. You'll find that almost every kind of mixed-mode effect can be put down. In this step I spent a lot of time experimenting with each of the mixed patterns and the results of overlapping. Finally, my decision is as follows: background-soft light mode; background copy 2--positive stack mode; background copy 3--strong light mode; background copy 4--exclusion mode. Of course, there is no "right" approach, you will certainly have a better combination of ways. Finally, add a level adjustment layer to the top background copy, set the input color to 0,1.00,220, and increase the brightness of the screen (Figure 13). In this way, the original a pair of prosaic images become colorful.

Figure 13