Blend modes

A sketch colored digitally with use of several different blend modes in order to preserve the pencil lines and paper texture below the color layers.

Blend modes (alternatively blending modes[1] or mixing modes[2]) in digital image editing and computer graphics are used to determine how two layers are blended with each other. The default blend mode in most applications is simply to obscure the lower layer by covering it with whatever is present in the top layer (see alpha compositing); because each pixel has numerical values, there also are many other ways to blend two layers.

Most graphics editing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and GIMP, allow users to modify the basic blend modes, for example by applying different levels of opacity to the top "layer". The top "layer" is not necessarily a layer in the application; it may be applied with a painting or editing tool. The top "layer" also is called the "blend layer" and the "active layer".

In the formulas shown on this page, values go from 0.0 (black) to 1.0 (white).

  1. ^ "Blending Modes — Krita Manual 5.0.0 documentation". docs.krita.org. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  2. ^ "Blending Modes in Photoshop and Elements". Archived from the original on 2014-08-18. Retrieved 2014-08-27.