TheFIX 064: Photoshop Blend Modes
20In this episode of TheFIX, digital artist and Photoshop author Scott Valentine joins host Seán Duggan for a deep dive into Photoshop blend modes. Scott discusses the process of experimentation and creative play that he uses to really understand what goes on under the hood when certain blend modes are used. These creative experiments led to his book The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop, as well as the follow-up volume The Hidden Power of Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop (both from Adobe Press). His background in science and theater inform both the technical aspects of his Photoshop explorations as well as the creative paths that those explorations eventually lead to. In this episode, Scott shares some demos that include some of the color gradient "proving ground" files that he frequently uses to figure out how a blend mode is affecting the color and luminance values in an image. He also shows how certain blend modes can be used to enhance a glamour or portrait image, as well as create an elegant and fantastical image by using a blend mode with the clone stamp tool to clone from one image to another.