How to use Blend Modes in Photoshop to edit your Landscape Photos
Using layers and masks is one of the essential things in Adobe Photoshop in regards to photo editing. I personally love the countless options you get with this massive program.
It will take years to learn all the different functions to edit a photo, and in my opinion, it's not even necessary to know them all as they often have the same effect just in another way.
What is crucial to know - at least that's what I think - are the different blend modes that you can apply additionally to your layers.
Blend modes basically change the way your layer interacts with the one beneath it, which opens the door to so many different adjustment possibilities.
The default blend mode is "normal," which means that your current layer does nothing to the one underneath.
Mostly you want to work with "normal," but sometimes there are more useful ones. It all depends on the individual editing step.
In this article, I'm going to talk about my favorite blend modes and how I use them. There're so many but calm down guys - you don't need to know all of them, at least not as a landscape/nature photographer.
I'm going to group them in five different categories depending on their usage.
How to use Multiply and Screen
Let's start with these two blend modes, which work with the brightness values of an image. You can use "multiply" to darken your file and screen to brighten it.
I'd recommend using them combined with another adjustment layer and a layer mask on it. Usually, you don't have a reason to use "multiply" or "screen" when it's applied to your whole image.
Still, it can be compelling when combined with a luminosity mask to brighten a forest image, for example, partially, or to darken a sky to make it even more dramatic.
The screenshots down below show you a way how I like to use these two blend modes.
When you combine a blend mode with an adjustment layer, you suddenly have even more options to enhance your image.
You'll get the effect of the blend plus the edits you make inside your curves or levels layer (for example).
This is extremely useful to maintain contrast after darkening the sky. Use the levels layer to bring back some highlights to overcome a flat look.
As always, it's super important to practice for yourself as there are endless techniques that you can use on your photos. It's perfect to have quite a few of them in your toolbox, as every file is unique!
How to use Darken and Lighten
Have you ever noticed a white halo across contrasty edges in your image? I'm talking about the transition between dark and bright tones like a mountain and the sky, for example.
This effect can happen when you use too much micro-contrast like clarity in Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw, but that's not the only situation where it occurs.
Blending different exposures is also something that can cause white halos on your edges. Sometimes the mask is not precise enough, and so the exposures don't line up perfectly.
The consequences are leftovers from the brighter exposure, which causes these halos.
It can also happen after heavy use of the highlights and shadow slider inside Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. It always depends on your image, but when you have a dark subject compared to a bright sky, too much highlight and shadow recovery can cause issues like halos and noise.
Feel free to check out my article "how to edit your images without overdoing it" to find more tips about it.
The solution to this situation is quite simple! Use a soft brush combined with the "darken" or "lighten" blend mode to get rid of these nasty halos.
The "darken" blend mode makes sure that you add the effect only to tones which are brighter than the ones you sampled, and lighten does the exact opposite.
Dark halos can occur when you use too much of the Orton effect, for example. The transition between dark and bright tones gets blurred, and so they may bleed into each other.
Simply use the stamp tool with the "lighten" blend mode to fix that issue.
I talk more about it in my "5 Photoshop hacks every photographer should know" article, so make sure to check it out.
How to use Darker Color and Lighter Color
My description from above also applies to these two blend modes as I also use them to clean up any halos on my contrasty edges.
It again depends on the image, which is the better method.
Feel free to try out both to see which you like better. The difference between "darken" and "darker color" is that the first one selects dark tones, and the latter does the same with dark colors.
When the halo/fringing has a lighter color than the one, you sampled you will get an excellent cleaning on your edges as well. The same goes for the blend modes "lighten" and "lighter color."
How to use Softlight and Overlay
So far, I mostly talked about blending modes that adjust the brightness values, but now we will dive a bit deeper into the contrast section!
Softlight and overlay are both one of my most used blend modes, and that's for a good reason.
You can use them in so many different ways, whether it's for simple contrast adjustments or more advanced techniques like "light painting" and dodging and burning.
Before I start with some sample images, I want to clarify that softlight is - as the name already indicates - the softer version from those two.
I recommend using softlight when you already have a strong contrast between the darks and highlights in your shot. "Overlay" is the better option if you want to add a whole bunch of contrast to a flat file with lots of mid-tones but almost no dark or bright tones in it.
Again, this is just a general rule of thumb because every single image is unique and requires different techniques to make it look appealing.
You have many options where to apply this effect as you can either use it on simple blank layers, pixel-based layers, or adjustment layers. I personally love using them combined with blank layers.
These two images demonstrate the different effects softlight and overlay have on the whole picture. You can see that it's way too contrasty in both versions, so working local is key here!
You can either use only the blank layer and paint in the effect on the desired area or combine it with precise luminosity masks to target only specific tones in your image.
Use a white color if you want to brighten and the black color to darken parts of your photo.
without overlay
with the effect
Of course, you're not only limited to white or black, as you can also choose between every other color available.
If you want to brighten an area without losing saturation, I recommend using a bright color that matches the ones from the part you want to adjust in your file.
Simply use the eyedropper and sample the color of your subject. Make sure to use a brighter version of the color, and now you're able to add color and highlights at the same time.
This also applies to "darkening effects"! Simply choose a darker color and paint it on the subject that you want to darken.
This brightening with "color" method is also called "light painting" and can be used in countless ways to enhance the mood in your image.
For example, you can add extra punch to your highlights or emphasize bright reflections of light in your foreground to get a 3d effect.
Check out the video to learn a bit more about dodging and burning
How to use Hard Light and Linear Light
These two blending modes do also affect contrast, same as softlight and overlay, but in a bit of a different way. Especially hard light adds a strong contrast and also desaturates the image a bit, at least when adding a white or a bright color.
Linear light does almost the same but without desaturating the colors as much.
It depends on you what you want to use, and as always, I recommend trying things out to get a better understanding of each technique.
I personally love using hard light to enhance the parts of my image where light is hitting a certain area or when I want to bring out the dimension of a subject.
As it's an extreme adjustment, you should lower the opacity of your brush quite a bit when you want to use the dodging and burning technique.
I recommend starting with soft light for your dodge and burn layer to paint in some nice color to an area and then use hard light on a more narrow part to add the last extra kick to it.
Try using it on mountains, rocks, or flowers to enhance texture and dimension. It's some extra work to do but worth the effort, in my opinion.
How to use Color and Saturation
Now let's quickly talk about color and saturation as a blending mode. I already mentioned the usage of these modes in my "how to use curves in Adobe Photoshop," so feel free to check the article out if you want to learn more about that.
They basically help you only to target the color of your image instead of everything. The normal blend mode also affects the contrast a little bit when applying color changes to your file. You can clearly see it by using the color balance layer.
When you add blue to your shadows, it will also darken them a bit because blue is a "dark" color, and the opposite goes when you add yellow to the highlights. Yellow is a bright color, so you will also brighten your bright tones.
To overcome this effect, Photoshop gives you the option to work with the color blend mode. So when you want to change or enhance colors, I recommend using "color," and when you only want to work with the saturation, I recommend - to your surprise - "saturation" as your blend mode. It's as simple as that, guys!
How to use Luminosity
Last but not least, I also want to mention "luminosity." It acts the same as "color" but with contrast. Photoshop works this way that when you add contrast to an image, you also adjust the color. Simply use the blend mode "luminosity" to overcome this effect.
It makes a lot of sense when you already have a super colorful image, which only needs some contrast but no more saturation like a burning sunset, for example. I also talk more about it in my curves article, which I already mentioned above.
Alright, guys, I hope you enjoyed reading this post about blend modes.
It's an advanced topic as you can combine it with countless adjustments to get new and crazy effects on your images, but that's the fun part about photo editing. Everybody does it differently, and every style is unique!
So what is your favorite blend mode? Do you have any questions? Feel free to write it down in the comments below or send me an email! I'm always there to help.
Cheers,
Daniel Gastager