Color & Blend Modes
Let's take your knowledge of color adjustments and blend modes one step further. Create three very different versions of a composite image.
- Find two interesting and colorful images online which you can overlap in your composite. Save them into your Chapter 4 folder. Open them in Photoshop. (Keep these original images in your Chapter 4 folder.)
One image will be my Flower layer and the other will be my Swirl layer.
- Add one image onto the other in some way. Give a suitable name to each layer. Save the composite file as Color Experiment.psd. This will be your starting point for each of three versions.
- Save the file again as Color Experiment 1.psd.
- Apply an artistic filter to one of the layers (Filter > Artistic). You can try other filters instead. Filter > Distort has some cool ones.
- Apply a color adjustment to the other layer (Image > Adjustments). Try Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, or Variations.
- Select your top-most layer. In the layers palette, change the blend mode from Normal to something else. Try out a bunch until you find a neat combination.
- Save your file.
- Re-open Color Experiment.psd and save it as Color Experiment 2.psd. Repeat steps a - d above but with all different settings. You can change the order of the layers if you like. Save your file.
- Re-open Color Experiment.psd and save it as Color Experiment 3.psd. Repeat steps a - d above but with all different settings. You can change the order of the layers if you like. Save your file.
- Turn in your Chapter 4 folder containing all your Color Experiment .psd files plus your two original images.
My results are below:
The Flower layer on the bottom has the Plastic Wrap filter applied to it. The Swirl layer on top has had a hue increase and a Difference blend mode applied.
The Swirl layer on the bottom has the Cutout filter applied to it. The Flower layer on top has had a hue increase and a Lighten blend mode applied.
The Swirl layer on the bottom has been colorized to a monotone purple. The Flower layer on top has the Ocean Ripple filter and a Linear Light blend mode applied.