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Lesson Info

Hard Light Mode

But then the next mode below that, which starts with the mode called overlay, is a combination of the two sections we just talked about. What it does is it uses as its neutral color 50% gray. Then anything that is brighter than 50% gray is going to act like one of the lightened modes. Anything is darker than 50%. Gray is gonna act like one of the darkened modes, but 50% gray itself will disappear, known as being neutral. So let's take a look at one of those. I'm gonna go to the one that is the equivalent to multiply and screen put together, and that is called hard light. So in hard light mode, notice where 50% gray used to be. It's missing. It's just gone. Anything brighter than 50% gray is brightening the pictures. If it's using light, anything darker than 50% gray is darkening, as if using ink. That's what hard light mode does. But all of the modes that are found in this section are generally combinations of modes that were found in the other two, just with 50% gray being the dividin...

g line of one of the lightning modes in one of the darkened modes. So what the heck can we use thes four? Well, there are all sorts of things we can use them for, one of which would be when we want to apply filters. Let's say I took this particular image and I duplicated this layer typing command J control jam windows is one way of duplicating the layer. I think of it is jumping it to a new layer. Then let's apply a filter. If I go over here, there is under stylized a choice called in boss. And if you look it in, boss, it produces a huge amount of 50% gray. The dominant gray that you're seeing right now in here is exactly 50% great. And then I can adjust this to fine tune our results. But the base, the majority of that is exactly 50% gray. Click. OK, so what if I want to get rid of that gray? And if we were to get rid of the grey, it just goes away. But then this area here that's brighter than 50% gray is gonna act like light, and it's gonna brighten the image. It's underneath the area over here that is darker than 50 re sent. Gray is gonna act like ink and it's gonna print right on top of the image. And therefore, where this strap is going to cross on one side, it's gonna be brighter on the other side. It's gonna be darker. Let's try it out. I'll get to do is set this too hard light mode. Now, if I hide that layer cut off and back on again, you get a feeling for it. Look at those little highlights that are on the edges of things. Also, some of the skin texture is getting it. I'm not saying that's the best thing to use on this particular image. I'm just letting you know that certain filters will produce a tremendous amount of 50% gray. Let's look at another example. Okay, Have a well, we'll end up using textures. What I'm gonna do is just take this rough texture that I have, and I'm going to take this image. I'm gonna put a rough texture on top, so use my move tool. I'll click within this image, dragged to the other town to get it to come to the front and then dragged my mouse down into the image. You have to both start and finish your dragging inside the other image. I'll scale this up just so it fills the whole area. That's good Notice. Free transform press returner entered indicate that I'm done All right. So if there happens to be any areas in here that are brighter than 50% gray, I can get them to brighten the image that's underneath. And if there happens to be any areas that are darker than 50% gray, it's gonna dark and what's underneath? So let's change this to the choice called Hard Light. Now, the problem is, I didn't make sure that this image contained a good amount of 50% gray. Ah, I didn't make sure had a good division between those two, so I can come over here and make an adjustment. If you go toe levels the middle slider in levels. This guy right here, forces whatever's directly below it. Whatever is this shade in your document to exactly 50% gray and you can move this around so if we move it over here, we used to be this bright will be 50% gray. Then this bar chart tells you how much space the shades take up and you see him when this goes to the top way up here. That's what takes up the most space in this image. So what takes up the most space if you go straight down from it? Is this shade right here? Well, what I'm going to do is just point this thing right at the tip of that. That means let's take whatever shade takes up the most space in this document, and let's make it exactly 50% gray. That's the gray that's gonna disappear in this mode. And I can do that with a lot of textures. And sometimes I don't know if it will be in the case of this particular image, that's going to make it more useful in these other blending modes. But with all the blending modes in this section, they all work the same. It's gonna make things brighter than 50% Gray Brighton and things darker than 50% great darkened, so why don't I just switch between all of them to see if there's one that might give me a result? I like better, but there's something else that comes to mind, and that is, if you look at the image that's underneath, why don't we put that image on top? I'll unlock its layer by clicking on the lock symbol because when it's locked, I can't move it up. I'll drag it above. And why not just print that as if it's ink? If I printed that as if it's Inc. Where the bird cages and the bird that get a lot of ink and then out here it would only put down a teeny bit of ink over here with their some accessories. But that would potentially be better. So let's go over here and try and multiply mode. There we go. So it's good to have a general knowledge of how to think about these modes as a whole. We can also cheat on occasion. Let's say that Ah, I want to apply a lens flare filter to something. I'm gonna put it on this image. Well, if I come in here, choose filter, render lens flare, you get this filter, and if I can a little cross here here, I can drag around to move it wherever I want. In that I click OK, and I get a lens flare. But I want that to be on a separate independent layer so I could change which pictures underneath it. Or I could do retouching on the image underneath. There were anything else. So let's choose, undo and put that on its own layer. I'm gonna create a brand new empty layer by clicking the new layer icon. I'll return to the filter menu, and it was under Render lens flare. Oh, bummer. It can't work on an empty layer, and that's because the lens flare filter just brightens. Whatever you feed it in the particular layer I'm working on contains nothing, so there's nothing in that layer to brighten. So let's throw that layer away. And let's see if we can use blending modes to help us here. Well, when you create a brand new empty layer, if you just click the icon, you get an empty layer. But if you option, click the icon that's all clicking and Windows. It'll ask you from some settings first, including the name. So I held down the option key Ultimate Windows. When I click the new Layer icon, then I'm gonna come in here and choose a blending mode. All you're dealing here is your pre choosing the mode that will be found at the top of the layers panel. Whatever you choose here will end up being chosen in the layers panel. I'm gonna choose hard light mode. Then you'll see right here. It says fill with hard, light, neutral color number as trying to feed you the concept of a neutral color S O. That means it's gonna fill it with 50% gray. Ah, click OK, and we have a brand new empty layer, but it's not actually empty. It's full of a neutral color, 50% gray, and you don't see the 50% gray because it's a hard light mode and that color doesn't show up in hard light mode. But now if we apply a filter that can only Brighton and dark and what you feed it, we're feeding it something right here that it could easily Brighton and darken. So filter render lens flare works just fine now and now I could change the picture that has found underneath now I could've former touching under there or anything else, but we've cheated. And that was using blending modes. Now, the other blending modes that are found in the same menu are very similar. So you could attempt to use overlay mode soft light mode, vivid line pin light in hard max. But you see that they're just variations on the same theme. So if you find that one of them is useful, try the others. And so it's less important that you understand the individual blending modes more important, that you understand the whole categories. Now let's look at another category of blending modes, and I'm just going to duplicate this layer. So we have something to work with in the next section of blending modes. Right in here. In those are the difference modes. What a difference modes do. Well, difference mode shows you where two layers are different. Where have they changed in appearance? So what I want to dio is if you look at this particular image, this is a repeating pattern, and if you see there's a whole right here and you can see a little swoosh coming into it in that swoosh above it. Now, if you go over away, still see a repeat of the exact same feature, and if you go vertical. You see this little nodule here? And if you went far enough down, you should see another one because it's a repeating pattern. Well, I want to break this down into the smallest repeating pattern possible because photo shop has a feature to deal with patterns and we should be able to turn this into a pattern that we could fill any size document with. So to do that, I'm going to make a selection like this, and I'm gonna copy that area to its own layer. But before I competed, I want to put a guide out there to remember where the edge of the selection waas To put a guide out, you need to have your rulers visible. You can do that from the view menu right here. Or just type command. Our control are in Windows. Pull out a guide to mark where the edge was. Now I'm gonna copy just that part that selected I'll do it by typing command J control JM windows, which means jumped out to a new layer. So if I were to hide the layer that's underneath, you see that we have just that chunk on its own layer. Now I'm gonna change the blending mode of that layer to a choice called difference. And wherever these two layers are identical, it's going to display black. So now all I'm gonna do is I'm going to also mark the top position of where this waas with a guide. And I'm just gonna drag this with my move tool towards the right, and I'm going to see if it ever turns black again. If it ever turns black again, it should precisely match what's underneath. It's dark there, meaning it's similar, but it's not exact. So I keep going. It's getting dark there. It's still not exact. Keep going. Who? Right there? It's getting black. I might inch it to the right and left with my arrow keys to make sure exactly on. But I am So now I'm gonna pull on a new guide and again mark the left side because that's how far I moved before I found a repeat. Then I would drag it vertically straight down and see if I can get it turned black again. No, it's not close, its exact That's what I'm looking for now most there it is, So I will use my arrow case. Make sure right on. And I am. And I pulled on a guide in Mark where the top is now. I can throw away that layer because the four guides that I have in their defined the edges of the repeating area in. If I were to grab my selection tool and make a selection between those, I can then go to the edit menu and I'm gonna find a choice in here called Where Is it defined pattern? That means have Photoshopped remember it this and haven't think of it as a repeating shape, a seamless shape. I don't know what I'm gonna call it. Then we could test it. I could come over here and create a brand new document and let's see, Let's make it a large document. There's our new document. I could go to the edit menu, choose Phil, and one of the things I can fill with is a pattern. And the very last pattern in this list should be the last one that was saved. So I chose Edit Phil, and in that menu was a choice called Pattern. And now I have a nice repeating pattern. So if I know I have a repeating pattern and I need to find the smallest portion of where it repeats. Those modes could be very useful. They can also be useful any time you're trying to line things up. Um, we're maybe you're trying to manually stitcher panorama because normal panorama stitching software just didn't work for you. So you move two layers. Intelligence is close to black means there is close to being aligned.