Again – for most of you this is old hat, but I thought I should do this anyway. Just to have it posted somewhere.
 
 I’m gonna do a very superficial demo of the most common Layer Blends and a couple of useful tools in the Tools Palette.
 
 There’s actually one other useful thing about this post – if you have a copy of Photoshop that “speaks” another language than English *waves at sunshine63*, this might help in finding the tools mentioned in tutorials. To my knowledge the menu’s are “built” the same way regardless of language. 😉
 
 Let’s get started, shall we?
 
 As usual – I’m using Photoshop CS2, but CS3 and down to 7.0 (as I understand it) has all the same features.
 
 Warning: VERY image heavy under the cut.
 
 
 
 Let’s start this by getting to know the most common Layer Blends.
 
 The menu for it can be found at the top of the Layers Palette:
 
 
 Multiply
  —–>
 I have duplicated the original image and set the new layer to Multiply.
 
 
 Screen
  —–>
 I have duplicated the original image and set the new layer to Screen.
 
 Overlay
  —–>
 I have duplicated the original image and set the new layer to Overlay.
 
 Soft Light
  —–>
 I have duplicated the original image and set the new layer to Soft Light.
 
 
 Exclusion
  —–>
 I have created a new layer, filled it with a dark blue (#081133) and set it to Exclusion. This gives a cold peachy hue to the image.
 
 Next let’s look a bit closely to the Tools Palette and a couple of very common and useful tools in it!
 
 Let’s start with these three.
 
 By holding down the mouse button a drop down menu pops up and you can choose one of three tools.
 
 Blur Tool
  —–>
 I have here blurred Peter’s skin, very carefully avoided his eyes, any “edges”, hair, mouth and eyes. I used a soft brush, 11 px wide and the strength set to Normal and 20%.
 
 
 Sharpen Tool
  —–>
 Using a soft brush, 13 px wide, strength set to Normal and 20% I went over his eyes, eyebrows, ridge of his nose and nostrils.
 
 
 Smudge Tool
  —–>
 Ehem… yeah… This might seem very NOT useful at all, but it actually is. I did it this way just to show what it does. The smudge tool is very useful when you have an image where the edges have become a bit pixelated from over sharpening and you want to smooth them out without using the blur tool which will take away the sharpness of it. With the smudge tool set at a low strength and with a small size brush you can carefully brush along the edge to get rid of the pixelation. There are a couple of different strength types you can use and the best thing is just to play and see what you need for every occasion. 😉
 
 Moving on! To the right…
 
 
 Dodge Tool
  —–>
 The dodge tool will lighten the pixels you run it over. Here I have used a soft brush, 35 px and the strength set to Midtones 22%.
 
 
 Burn Tool
  —–>
 The burn tool will darken the pixels you run it over. Here I have used a soft brush, 21 px and the strength set to Midtones 22%.
 
 Sponge Tool – Desaturate
  —–>
 The sponge tool with either desaturate or saturate the pixels you run it over. Here I have used a soft brush, 65 px and the strength set to Desaturate 50%.
 
 Sponge Tool – Saturate
  —–>
 The sponge tool with either desaturate or saturate the pixels you run it over. Here I have used a soft brush, 65 px and the strength set to Saturate 50%
 
 All of them in the same image….
  —–>
 
 Hope that was somewhat useful…
 
 A lot of the Photoshop-centric tutorials uses Adjustment Layers. The “long way” to add such a layer is to in the main menu on the top choose Layer – New Adjustment Layer. But there’s a way that’s a wee bit quicker:
 
 
 That’s it I think.
 Hope I didn’t bore you to tears!
 
 

Comments are lovely, and so are questions. If you do end up using this I would love to see what you make out of it!
 
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS: HERE You can leave anonymous comments as long as you mentioned you are redirected from Reminiscent-Designs!