Render translation in Photoshop. Color Burn and Color Dodge blend modes

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Good afternoon, friends, I have already published manual articles on Photoshop (and descriptions of all of them).

Now I want to start a series of posts in which I will describe all the main features of the Layer Styles window or “layer styles” in Russian.

All these styles and effects are probably the most used by any web designer, so knowledge of all the basic features is simply necessary, especially for beginners. As you can see in the screenshot, there are quite a lot of styles and I will try to make a separate detailed post for each, according to my calculations, there will be 10 - 11 posts, starting from Drop Shadow and ending with Stroke. Maybe I’ll combine something or, on the contrary, split it, we’ll see in the future, but for now first post in a series about Color Overlay. Go!

I would like to immediately note that I always use the English version of Photoshop and therefore I take all my screenshots in this form and I am not going to translate the names of the styles into Russian. By the way, I have always said and will continue to say - work on the English version, because all good manuals, sources and documentation are created specifically for the English versions. This makes it easier to learn new things, since there is almost no sensible information on the RuNet.

Using Color Overlay

Color Overlay is literally translated from English as “color overlay” or “color mixing”; from the name it is already clear that the main function of this style is working with color, mixing the color scheme of the layer with the background in different ways, etc.

The Color Overlay style is quite simple to use and has only two settings - Blend Mode and Opacity.

Blend Mode- is the main feature of Color Overlay, it has 25 color mixing modes, using which we can create various color effects.

All “blending modes” are divided into the main types of effects on layers and colors:

In the example below, you can see how the blending of the top layer with the background changes depending on the selected mode.

The way the layers interact with each other is determined by the blend modes of the top layer. By default, the layer mode is set to Normal, which causes the image content on the top layer to obscure parts of the images below, but Photoshop has many ways to control how pixels interact. These are called blending modes—various options that give the user a variety of ways to control the blending, overlay, and any interaction of layer content.

Layer blending modes are found in the drop-down menu at the top of the panel. Blending modes can also be applied to images using the drop-down menu in the toolbar.

The blending modes are divided into 6 different sections. The Basic section replaces the base pixels, Darken darkens the base pixels, Lighten brightens them, Contrast increases or decreases overall contrast, Comparative inverts the base color, and HSL modes determine a specific color component. Some blend modes need to be made semi-transparent to achieve the best effect. With all the variety of Photoshop features, only experimentation will give you a real understanding of the technique.

To help you learn and understand how blend modes work, we've prepared a summary of all the blend modes present in Photoshop CS3 Extended today. In the following example of blending modes, the image has two layers - 'Top Layer'

And 'Bottom Layer'.

In each example, the blend mode of the top layer is changed to visually illustrate how the layers stack on top of each other.

Basic

Normal- The pixels of the top layer are opaque and therefore cover the bottom layer. Changing the opacity of the top layer will make it translucent and cause it to blend into the other layer.

Dissolve- Combines the top layer with the bottom using a pixel pattern. There will be no effect if the top layer has 100% opacity. Reduce the transparency for the effect to appear. The example shows 80% transparency.

Darken

Darken- Combines the colors of the top and bottom layers and blends pixels in places where the top layer is darker than the bottom.

Multiply- Superimposes the color of the bottom layer onto the top layer, thereby giving a darkened result. If the top layer is white, no changes will occur.

Color Burn- Darkens or “burns” the image using the contents of the top layer. If the top layer is white, no changes will occur.

Linear Burn- Uses the same approach as Color Burn mode, but produces a stronger darkening effect. If the top layer is white, no changes will occur.

Darker color- Similar to Darken mode, except that it works on all layers at once, rather than on just one. When you blend two layers, only the dark pixels will remain visible.

Lighten

Lighten- Compares the colors of the top and bottom layers and mixes pixels if the top layer is lighter than the bottom.

Screen- The opposite of the Multiply mode as it applies an inversion of the top layer to the bottom, giving a lighter effect.

Color Dodge- Makes the image lighter by hiding the top layer behind the bottom. If the top layer is black, there will be no effect.

Linear Dodge (Add)- Similar to Screen mode, but gives a brighter effect. If the top layer is black, there will be no effect.

Linear color- Similar to Lighten mode, but works with all layers at once, instead of just one layer. When you blend two layers together, only the lightest pixels will be visible.

Contrast

Overlay- Combines the effect of Multiply and Screen modes, blending the top layer with the bottom. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Soft Light- Similar to Overlay mode, but gives a more moderate effect. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Hard Light- Uses the same approach as Overlay mode, but the effect is stronger. Here, the top layer is set to either Screen or Multiply mode, depending on its color. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Vivid Light- combines the effect of Color Burn and Color Dodge modes and applies blending depending on the color of the top layer. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Linear Light- Similar to Vivid Light mode, but with a stronger effect. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Pin Light- Mixes light colors using Lighten mode and dark colors using Darken mode. If the top layer is 50% gray, there will be no effect.

Hard Mix- Creates a picture with even tones, limited in colors and posterized. The glow of the top layer mixes with the color of the bottom.

Comparative

Difference- Displays the tonal difference between the contents of two layers by removing light pixels from either layer. The result is a dark and sometimes upside-down picture.

It’s the twentieth of March, the April issue of the Photo Workshop magazine has gone on sale, so it’s time to post the continuation of the story from the March issue.

In the first part we talked about. In the second part we looked at the work. In the third - .

Our test subjects today: Color Burn and Color Dodge. This is the sweetest pair of all blending modes, opening up the most interesting and rich possibilities. However, they are meaningfully used by a fairly narrow circle of people. Most people try to use them at random, get burned and put them on the back burner. It’s not surprising to get burned - these are very “sharp” modes, even a small impact leads to strong changes in the picture. Let's remember that we need to act smoothly, and let's figure it out.

As always, those who want to “twist the files” at the same time as reading can download layer-by-layer psd (40 MB) of all the analyzed examples.

Color Burn

Materials for analysis

Left board: the result of overlaying the original image (9 vertical stripes with a step of 32 tone levels, black on the left, white on the right) with a correction (9 horizontal stripes with a step of 32 tone levels, black at the bottom, white at the top) in the Color Burn mode. The numbers in the cells show the brightness after overlay.

Right board: scheme for changing brightness - the more the brightness changes, the lighter the corresponding cell. The numbers in the cells show how much the brightness has changed. Their negative values ​​indicate its decrease.

Left scale:

Family of curves, which have an effect on the original image similar to the overlay of monochromatic solids with brightnesses of 255, 192, 128, 64, 0.

Formula for normalized brightness
S C R

Formula for 8-bit mode
s— brightness of the original image; With— brightness of the correction image; r— brightness of the final image.

The brightness after application may differ from that calculated by the formula by one tone level (rounding error). This is probably due to the fact that the program contains a different representation of this formula.

The general description of the Color Burn mode sounds too cumbersome, so it makes sense to go straight to the curve family. In terms of curves, Color Burn is shifting the black point to the right by the amount of darkness of the overlay image.

As with all burn modes, the neutral for Color Burn is white (255).

The maximum impact occurs in the shadows (they degenerate into a black spot), decreasing linearly to zero at the white point. As the correction image darkens, the saturation area extends into the lighter part of the tonal range.

Strong darkening in the dark part of the tonal range with a weak effect on the light one leads to a sharp darkening of the strong (dark) channel with a small change in the weak (light) channel. Thus, the difference in brightness between the dark and light channels increases, that is, color saturation increases. This is why the “frying” of colors that is so characteristic of Color Burn occurs.

In the dark part of the tonal range, where the brightness of the original image is less than the darkness of the correction image, the contrast drops to zero (shadow cutoff). Due to this, there is a uniform increase in contrast in the remaining light part of the full tonal range.

Shadow clipping can be used when creating masks. You also need to be able to protect the dark details of the image from it when Color Burn is used to increase contrast, increase saturation and enhance details in the highlights.

Reducing the opacity of the adjustment image is not the same as reducing the impact. The right shows the weakening of the impact of the brightness patch 64 overlay due to a decrease in opacity, the left shows a similar reduction in the impact due to brightening the patch.

By decreasing the opacity of the overlay layer, the contrast in the dark part of the tonal range is partially restored. In this case, the details of the original image lying in this range begin to be restored. This can be used to protect image detail in the shadows.

Overlay in Color Burn mode is similar to increasing the exposure time when printing a photograph from a negative in inverse proportion to the normalized brightness of the overlay plate. That is, applying a plate with a brightness of 128 is similar to increasing the exposure by two times, 64 by 4 times, 32 by 8 times.

At the same time, you need to understand that Color Burn’s ability to pull out details in high lights is significantly (if not radically) lower than that of real film. This is due to the presence of a fairly large “shoulder” on the characteristic curve of negative film. In this area, albeit with compression, a lot of detail is retained that can be pulled out by manipulating the exposure during printing. There is no such treasure in the file.

Last time we saw how Screen moves the black point. In fact, Screen overlay reduced the exposure when printing a photo from a negative. Color Burn mode does the opposite and can be considered complementary to Screen. The application tip is also obvious - with Color Burn you can get rid of those image features that can be simulated with Screen: glare and haze.

The white point remains in place, the darkening rate increases as it moves into darker tones; in the range of darker halftones, the image degenerates into a black solid. The exact shape of the curve that has a similar effect can be seen in the first article of the series (“Photo Workshop” No. 67, December 2010).

What can Color Burn mode be used for?

To increase contrast and saturation of light objects

Since Color Burn increases contrast in the highlights and increases color saturation, let's take advantage of this. In the picture here, I want to make the deer look "richer and more colorful" without changing the color tone. This means that you need to work with a neutral gray color. We've already established that reducing the opacity for Color Burn does not equal reducing the impact, so masking is not an option.

I will use the method described in the last issue: create a new layer, fill it with a neutral color for Color Burn (white) and draw on it. You can protect yourself from clipping and disappearance of details in the shadows by reducing the layer opacity by 20-30 percent. Click on the icon for creating a new layer in the Layers palette while holding down the Alt key and in the additional menu that appears, enter all the necessary settings for the new layer Color_Burn.

Next, draw on a new layer with a neutral gray color those areas that we want to improve in the original image. This is what the resulting layer content looks like: Color_Burn, layer structure and final image. In fact, we made an analogue of the Burn Tool, only with more flexible capabilities. Haven't noticed these new features yet? Then let's go in order.

And the first question: how to draw? You can set the brush to a low opacity (I set the Opacity to 20%), set the main color to black, and the secondary color to white. In this case, each subsequent brush stroke will increase the darkening up to the maximum possible. The more smoothly you need to darken, the lower the opacity of the brush is set. By swapping the primary and secondary colors ("X" key), you can lighten the overlay layer, reducing the impact on the picture.

The opposite approach: set the brush opacity to 100%, and set the main color to light gray, which provides the necessary darkening of the original image. In this way, we will immediately apply a precisely dosed impact, protecting ourselves from too much darkening. In practice, a combination of these methods is usually used.

To remove haze and glare

Suppressing haze or glare is the same as raising the contrast in the highlights. I focused on this as a separate technique simply because such a task is often encountered in life. The subjects will be a small landscape in which the mountain in the background is obscured by blue haze. Let's not start an argument about its appropriateness (everyone will decide this on their own, assessing their own frame), now we are analyzing a pure technique: how to remove colored haze.

And here the second question arises: what to draw with? The Burn Tool works according to a strictly defined algorithm, focusing only on the color of the original image, and cannot add a color tint to it. But we can. To honestly move on to working with color, you need to jointly analyze the impact in three pairs of pictures (three channels). I will not overload you with such analysis and will give ready-made recommendations for choosing color tone, saturation and brightness.

When overlaying, a shade of the same color tone as the overlay is added. This means that to suppress blue, you need to overlay the opposite yellow. Let's use a pipette to take the characteristic blue color on the mountainside, its parameters: Hue = 227, Saturation = 42, Brightness = 56. The opposite color will be a color that differs in color tone by 180 degrees, that is, Hue = 47.

The greater the saturation of the applied color, the greater the difference between the effects on different channels, the stronger the chromatic component is introduced. Simply put, the color will come out faster. Considering that Color Burn reacts very sharply to any impact, it is better to reduce the saturation. In this example, Saturation = 20.

The greater the darkness (deviation of brightness from white), the more dark the picture will be. Again, do not forget about the sharp response to any impact and increase the brightness. Considering the not very successful construction of the HSB model, you can set the brightness even to the maximum value of 100%. I didn't go to extremes and set Brightness = 80.

We've decided on the color, now let's make the work even more flexible. I like to use fill layers and paint on masks attached to them. I described the advantages of this approach last time. But when working with Color Burn, you cannot operate with opacity - you need a drawing on a white background.

This problem can be easily solved by a competent layer-by-layer structure. Create a group of layers Color_Burn, set it to the appropriate blending mode and opacity to 75%. Place a white fill layer at the bottom of this group. White_Base, put a fill layer of the required color above and draw on the mask attached to it. The illustration shows this layer structure and an image of a layer mask Color Fill 1.

If necessary, you can add additional impact by adding new fill layers to the group.

The result is a flexible structure that makes it easy to check and, if necessary, change all impact parameters. In this case, the original image is corrected in one touch. Burn Tool smokes convulsively on the sidelines.

To cast shadows on refractive objects

What are these objects? Ice, drops of liquid, glass, crystal, precious stones, etc. These objects refract the light of sources around them and can “shoot a light hare” into our eyes, even if they are in the shadows. The higher the refractive index, the more bunnies, the higher the value of the material. It is easy to guess that diamond has the highest refractive index in the visible part of the spectrum.

If there is a need to darken such an object, under no circumstances should you touch the white point. Otherwise, the glow will go out, and instead of a precious stone lying in the shadow, you will get a photo of it lying in the shadow. Look at the family of curves: darkening without touching the white point is a literal Color Burn algorithm.

For effectively darkening relatively dark areas when creating masks

Multiply has the strongest effect on highlights, so when creating masks it is beneficial to use it to darken light areas of the workpiece. Color Burn, on the contrary, has the main effect on the shadows, and darkens the highlights quite weakly. Therefore, it makes sense to use it when relatively dark areas on the mask blank need to be darkened, so as not to bring a lot of debris into the light areas.

We have a photograph of a flower in front of us, and the task is to make a mask for it. Looking through the color channels shows that the best preset for it would be red. However, in the red channel there is not very good separation between the leaf and the shadow areas of the petals. The green channel gives us this division.

By applying the curves shown in the illustration to the red and green channels, we get good preparations for creating a mask. The main one will be the blank from the red channel, and to darken the leaf I will use the modified green one.

I will do the overlay using two Channel Mixer adjustment layers. I described this method in detail last time. Briefly its meaning is as follows: layer Gray_from_Red makes a monochrome image from the red channel (in fact, displays the red channel).

The underlying layer Green_to_Red overlaps the green channel with the red one. The blending mode of the green channel to red is set to the layer Green_to_Red in the Layers palette.

Now evaluate the result. At the top is the overlay in Multiply mode, at the bottom is Color Burn. Multiply was unable to cut the leaf cleanly and brought a lot of dark debris into the petal area. Color Burn did a much better job. Why? I asked this question to the readers of Photo Workshop as a little homework. Below is the promised answer.

In the overlay (green) channel, the lobes lie in the quarter tone region (the corresponding input range is marked in red in the left figure). The effect on the red channel will be similar to the curves shown in the left figure: blue for Multiply, red for Color Burn. For the latter, the effect on the lights (where the petals are in the red channel) is much weaker, so the petals in the red channel are darkened significantly less.

In the overlay (green) channel, the leaf lies in the three-quarter tone region (in the right figure the corresponding input range is marked in green). The effect on the red channel will be similar to the curves shown in the right figure: blue for Multiply, red for Color Burn. The latter darkens the three-quarter tone (where the leaf is in the red channel) to pure black, completely removing it from the future mask.

Color Dodge

Materials for analysis

Left board: the result of overlaying the original image (9 vertical stripes with a step of 32 tone levels, black on the left, white on the right) with a correction (9 horizontal stripes with a step of 32 tone levels, black at the bottom, white at the top) in the Color Dodge mode. The numbers in the cells show the brightness after overlay.

Right board: scheme for changing brightness - the more the brightness changes, the lighter the corresponding cell. The numbers in the cells show how much the brightness has changed. Their positive values ​​indicate its increase.

Left scale: darkness (deviation of brightness from white) of the applied plate.

family of curves, which have an effect on the original image similar to the overlay of monochromatic solids with brightness levels of 0, 64, 128, 192, 255.

Formula for normalized brightness.
S— brightness of the original image; C— brightness of the correction image; R— brightness of the final image.

Formula for 8-bit mode.
s— brightness of the original image; With— brightness of the correction image; r— brightness of the final image.

Description and answers to general questions

Like its antipode, this mode is easier to describe using curves. In terms of curves, Color Dodge is shifting the white point to the left by the amount of brightness of the overlay image.

1. Is there a neutral color for this blend mode and, if so, what is it?

As with all dodge modes, Color Dodge's neutral is black (0).

2. How does the degree of influence vary across the full tonal range?

The maximum impact occurs in the light (degenerates into a white spot), decreasing linearly to zero at the black point. As the correction image becomes lighter, the saturation area extends into the darker part of the tonal range.

3. How does contrast change in different tonal ranges?

In the light part of the tonal range, where the darkness of the original image is less than the brightness of the correction image, the contrast drops to zero (highlight cutoff). Due to this, there is a uniform increase in contrast in the remaining dark part of the full tonal range.

4. Does decreasing opacity correspond to decreasing impact?

Reducing the opacity of the adjustment image is not the same as reducing the impact. The right shows the weakening of the impact of the brightness patch 192 overlay due to a decrease in opacity, the left shows a similar reduction in the impact due to darkening the patch.

When the opacity of the overlay layer is reduced, the contrast in the light part of the tonal range is partially restored. In this case, the details of the original image lying in this range begin to be restored. This can be used to protect image details in highlights.

5. What real photographic processes does the blend mode correspond to?

Overlaying in Color Dodge mode is similar to increasing the exposure time when shooting in inverse proportion to the normalized darkness of the overlayed patch. That is, applying a plate with a brightness of 128 is similar to increasing the exposure by two times, 192 by 4 times, 224 by 8 times.

Any analogies with changing exposure during shooting require an additional caveat that all elements of the scene were initially within the dynamic range of the camera. For this analogy, it is important that there is no going beyond the DD in the shadows, otherwise, with a real increase in exposure, previously missing details will begin to appear in the image. When comparing the capabilities of Color Dodge with real film, one must also take into account the presence of the last “foot” on the characteristic curve and, therefore, significantly greater capabilities for extracting details from deep shadows.

Just as Color Burn complemented Screen for black point operations, Color Dodge is complementary to Multiply for white point operations. You can use Color Dodge to suppress the effects created by Multiply, or, more simply put, to get rid of shadows.

6. What happens when a picture is superimposed on itself?

7. How does the result change if the original and correction images are swapped?

Changing the blending order changes the result.

What can Color Dodge mode be used for?

To pull objects out of shadow

Let's look at this example briefly, since all the reasoning, conclusions and techniques are similar to those already discussed for Color Burn. There is a photograph of the underwater world and a desire to pull the red creatures located in the foreground (let's call them corals for simplicity) out of the shadows. Make them lighter, more contrasting and more saturated.

Use a pipette to pick up the characteristic color of the coral. We will enhance it, so there is no need to change the color tone (Hue). We set the Brightness to low, since Color Dodge responds very sharply to influence. Considering the low brightness and my desire to “light up” the corals, the Saturation can be set higher.

We repeat the layer-by-layer structure discussed earlier, replacing the white substrate with a black one, draw on the mask and get the final result.

Please note: both in this example and when removing the haze from the landscape, I painted quite generously over the mask. Without trying to draw the boundary of a mountain or coral. At the same time, the sky did not turn yellow, and the water and green algae on the rocks did not turn red. This is a consequence of the overlay algorithms.

The yellow-orange color in Color Burn mode darkened the blue and green channels, but the sky in them was much lighter than the mountains, so it did not change much. The red color in Color Dodge mode brings the main lightening to the red channel, but the water and green algae in it are much darker than the red coral, so they are lightened weakly.

At the end of the entire series, we will definitely talk about how to think in order to select a correction using a blend mode for a specific picture. And try to do this without waving the brush for a long time. But to do this, you need to remember well what impact each mode has, remember the shape of the curves. Take the time to look at the family of curves again and think about what you see.

And next time we'll talk about the last pair of channel modes: .

Those wishing to attend in-person classes in color correction and image processing can get acquainted with the programs and list of upcoming events at. There you will also find links to my other articles.

Without prior approval from the author, reprinting and posting of this material on any resources with free access is permitted, provided that the text (including this section), links and illustrations, attribution and a link to the first publication are fully preserved.

For commercial use or reprinting with changes, approval of the author is required. You can contact me by email website

Adobe Photoshop has a great feature - changing the layer blending mode. Today we will talk about Color Burn and Color Dodge. These blend modes provide some very interesting possibilities. Using these blend modes significantly changes the appearance of the image, so you need to be very fluid and careful.

Color Burn

The Color Burn mode darkens the black point by the amount of brightness of the overlay layer.

1. What is the neutral color for this mode?

• For Color Burn mode, the neutral color is white.

2. What is most affected by the Color Burn blend mode?

• It affects the shadows to a greater extent, making them darker. The saturation of the image in this mode changes to a lighter side.

3. How does the contrast change?

• The contrast throughout the photo increases. Because of this, shadow details become completely dark. There is a failure in the shadows.
• To bring back detail in the shadows, you need to use a mask, limiting the adjustment layer to affect only the highlights of the photo, and not affecting areas where failure may occur.

4. How does the impact of a layer decrease as the opacity decreases?

The impact does not decrease evenly. In the right diagram you can see how the impact of an element with a brightness of 64 decreases as the transparency decreases. In the left diagram you can see the reduction in impact by simple lightening.

Reducing the opacity allows you to partially restore the details of the original image that are in the shadows.

5. What happens if you superimpose an image on itself?

• The white point of such a photo will remain in place, but the darkening of the midtones will increase as their brightness decreases.

Using Color Burn Mode

Enhancing the contrast and saturation of light objects

Color Burn mode increases contrast in highlights and enhances color saturation. Let's try to make the deer juicier. To avoid changing the color tone, you need to work with a neutral gray color.

Create a new empty layer by pressing Alt + clicking on the create a new layer button. In the settings, set the blending mode to Color Burn. Make the layer color white and reduce the opacity to 75% so that there is no clipping of details in the shadows.

On the created layer, draw the necessary areas with a neutral gray color. This is what the photo looked like after processing:

The result is an analogue of the Burn Tool. This is where flexibility comes in:

You can paint with a brush with low transparency. This will allow you to make changes more smoothly. Each subsequent stroke will increase the impact, and if suddenly the impact turns out to be too strong, you can switch to white and use it to weaken it.

You can also set the brush opacity to 100% and choose a light gray color. In this case, a strictly limited effect will be introduced, which will not depend on the number of smears.

Removing haze and glare

In this example, the mountain is covered with a blue haze.

First you need to choose the color that will be used to make the adjustment.

The adjustment must be made in the opposite color. To find out, you need to take a color sample with a pipette and change it 180°. For blue the inverse is yellow. You can get the opposite color by decreasing the H° value by 180°. Saturation is controlled by the S (Saturation) value. For this case, it should be reduced to 20%.

The darker our adjustment color is, the more impact it will have on the original image. Therefore, the B (Brightness) setting should be set to a value between 80% and 100%.

Good flexibility in processing can be obtained by working with fill adjustment layers. For our method, it is imperative that there is a white substrate, and on it there is already a drawing with a corrective color. Therefore, we create a group into which we place a white fill adjustment layer. Above it is the same layer, only filled with yellow (the color we got earlier). You will need to draw with masks.

Change the group's blending mode to Color Burn and reduce its opacity to 75%. Now fill the mask of the yellow adjustment layer with black and paint over it with a white brush. If necessary, you can add additional corrective colors.

For effectively darkening relatively dark areas when creating masks

Color Burn has little effect on highlights, but makes a big difference in dark areas. This feature can be used to darken shadows. This is convenient when light areas need to be left untouched.

Now we will create a mask for the flower. The basis of the mask will be the channels. The red channel is great for creating a mask, but it has little separation between the petals and the dark part of the photo. Excellent separation is observed in the green channel.

Curves with the parameters indicated in the screenshot should be applied to the channels.

The blending will be done using Channel Mixer adjustment layers. The point is to create a monochrome image from the red channel on the Gray_from_Red layer.

The Green_to_Red layer underneath overlays the green channel on top of the red one.

You can see based on the experiment how much more profitable it is to use Color Burn than Multiply in this case. The Multiply blend mode left a lot of detail on the leaves and in the background.

Color Dodge

Color Dodge mode shifts the white point to the left by the brightness value of the overlay image.

1. What is the neutral color in this mode?

• For all lightening modes, the neutral color is black.

2. What is most affected by this mode?

• The maximum impact is on light. As the photo darkens, the exposure decreases to zero at the black point.

3. How does contrast change?

1. Contrast drops to zero at the lightest point and decreases as it darkens.

4. How does the effect of the blend mode change depending on the opacity of the blended layer?

• Reducing opacity does not necessarily reduce impact. The left shows the change in influence depending on the lightening of the overlay layer, and the right shows how the opacity decreases.

• Reducing the opacity restores some of the highlight detail in the original photo.

6. What happens if you superimpose a picture on itself?

• Under this overlay condition, the black point will remain unchanged, but as the tones lighten, they will become lighter. In the brightest areas, clipping of bright tones may occur. They will look like overexposure.

Applying Color Dodge mode

Pulling Objects Out of Shadows

This example will be discussed without details, since everything here is similar to the previous section on using the Color Burn blend mode. In the photo in question, you should pull out the red vegetation from the shadows.

Use a pipette to take the color of the plant. We will strengthen it. Since the color (Hue) should not be changed, we leave this parameter unchanged. Brightness should be reduced, because Color Dodge reacts very sharply to this parameter. Since the brightness is low, and we need to “light up” the vegetation, we need to increase the saturation.

Using a mask we draw the area in which the plants are located.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that the drawn mask captures not only the areas that need to be adjusted, but also neighboring elements. However, they are not subject to change. This can be seen in the last example with underwater vegetation and in the example with haze on the mountain. All this is thanks to the specific algorithm of these blending modes.

Yellow-orange in the Color Burn blend mode only makes changes to the blue and green channels. The sky is too pale, so the changes that affected it are so insignificant that they are invisible to the eye. In Color Dodge mode, red only brings maximum variation to the red channel. Water and other algae are too dark and therefore do not change in the visible spectrum.

Based on materials from the site: