How To Adjust Brightness On One Layer In Photoshop Cs6

One of the best things about Adobe Photoshop is the ability to work in layers. This allows you to have maximum command and work non-destructively.

Layers offering different ways to interact with each other and this is done through blend modes. Ane of the most common uses for this is photograph compositing using 2 images or more.

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There are many different methods for how to alloy layers in Photoshop. In this article, I'll go through three of them that should assist y'all out in a wide diversity of situations.

(You tin besides check how to merge images using Photoshop here.)

Then load upwardly your version of Photoshop and follow along with the steps beneath to create a unique multiple exposure effect.

How to Blend Images Together with Photoshop

Let's have a wait at three of the most useful ways to alloy images together, equally presented in the in a higher place video courtesy of Photoshop Essentials.

Each one volition requite you lot different results and volition nowadays dissimilar challenges. I'll walk you through all three and then you lot tin can use the method that suits you best, or you can employ all three of them when you're working on more complex composite photography ideas.

For all of them, y'all're going to be working in the Layers panel. If this is non visible, you can enable it in the menu Window, Layers.

Then, you'll need to accept the ii images together in the same document. There are a number of ways to do this:

You can drag the paradigm from one window to the other; you tin utilize the Re-create and Paste commands from the Edit menu or their respective keyboard shortcuts Cmd + C and Cmd + Five; or you tin use the Place Embedded control.

There's no right or incorrect way to do it, choose the one that you feel more comfy with.

Now let's get started.

Option 1: Use Photoshop Layer Opacity

Step ane: Choose your images

Tutorial for how to blend on Photoshop layers.

Credit: Viktor Talashuk

Using photoshop blend modes in your workflow

Credit: Aleksandr ledogorov

This mode of layering photos volition give you the effect of a double-exposure. That's why y'all should choose ii images that can give you a harmonic event.

Step ii: Open the two images as layers in Photoshop

When you have two images open in the same document in Photoshop, by default y'all'll only come across the top layer because of the blend way. Only that doesn't mean that the 2nd one isn't in that location.

Get to the Layers panel and see how you have two layers – i property each photo. Yous'll exist able to see them as thumbnails so y'all can recognize them.

The tiptop paradigm is currently blocking the groundwork layer. Try clicking on the eye icon next to it enable/disable information technology.

If you disable information technology, you'll be able to see the image on the bottom layer. If you click on it again, you'll make the top motion-picture show visible.

Step 3: Change the layer opacity

Adobe Photoshop tips for using layer opacity for blend effects.

Make sure you're working on the top image by clicking on it to select information technology. Then open the Opacity slider located at the top of the Layers panel by clicking on the downwards arrow next to it.

You lot can at present slide information technology to lower the opacity. As you practice this, the bottom image will outset to announced and interact with the agile layer.

Motility information technology slowly to detect the right corporeality. You can also type the specific number, for case, 70 will fix it at seventy% opacity.

Note that the lodge of the layers makes a difference in the result. You lot can then utilize the motion tool to arrange a particular limerick using the 2 images.

You can also turn on the guides in Photoshop to make certain everything is lined up OK.

Selection ii: Employ Photoshop Layer Alloy Modes

Step 1: Chose your images

Sample image of flowers for using blend modes in Photoshop

Credit: Hassan Pasha

Texture can be used to layer an image in Photoshop using blend modes

Credit: Pawel Czerwinski

This blend fashion is most unremarkably used to add together texture to your images, which is what I'm going to be showing y'all in the following example.

Notwithstanding, you can also use information technology to control adjustment layers or to blend more than ii images, because yous can apply a different blend mode to each layer.

Step two: Open both images

Open your two images together in one document. Make sure that the texture is in the superlative layer. You tin see and modify this in the Layers console.

Both images should be of the same size. If they aren't, adjust the size past going to the menu Edit, Transform, or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd + T.

Pace three: Change the Blending Mode

You can experiment with the different variations given by blend modes in Photoshop.
On top of the Layers panel, adjacent to the Opacity slider, yous'll observe the blending fashion of your layer. Past default, it's set to Normal, which means that the layer is non interacting with annihilation below it.

If you click on the down arrow, you'll open the Alloy Mode bill of fare. If y'all're using Photoshop CS6 yous won't exist able to meet a preview of the consequence, so you'll have to apply each one of the layer blending modes to see the issue.

On newer CC versions yous can just hover over the unlike blend modes to see how your image changes with each of them.

In the console, you'll see how the blending modes are divided into groups separated by a thin line. The first block contains the alloy modes that will darken your image through interactions.

Next, there's the group of layer blend modes that lightens the image. After that, you'll observe the ones that will change the contrast, and then on. This is designed for you to choose the blending modes more intuitively.

Each of these blend modes will alter the way in which the pixels from the tiptop layer interact with the pixels from the layer underneath.

Hither's a brief explanation of the unlike layer blend modes:

Normal (Shift + Selection + N): There's no interaction between layers, then you'll merely encounter the top prototype.
Dissolve (Shift + Option + I): This blend fashion favors the top layer'south pixels when the opacity has a loftier value, and the bottom pixels when the opacity is low. It also applies a dither design.
Darken (Shift + Selection + K): The lighter pixels are replaced past the darker ones.
Multiply (Shift + Option + Thousand): This blend mode multiplies the base colour past the blend color, which of course will result in a darker color. It's the about commonly used in this group.
Color Fire (Shift + Choice + B): The outcome is much darker than whatsoever you lot would get with Multiply. This blend mode volition result in a very saturated paradigm with an increment in contrast. It makes no difference when the blending colour is white.
Linear Fire (Shift + Option + A): Similar to the Color Burn down except that it decreases the lightness so the saturation isn't so extreme.
Darker Color: This works like Darken but it doesn't do it in separate channels.
Lighten (Shift + Option + G): This blend way is the opposite of Darken. It keeps the lighter colors from the meridian layer and the darker ones become replaced by the lighter ones from the lesser layer.
Screen (Shift + Pick + S): If you lot're blending with black you won't see whatsoever modify. If y'all alloy with white, then the colors in your image turn white. The other colors become brighter and less contrasting. It's the opposite of Multiply.
Color Dodge (Shift + Pick + D): This blend manner creates saturation and contrast. The result is much lighter than Screen or Lighten and very oft it blows out the highlights.
Linear Contrivance (Shift + Option + W): This is brighter than Color Contrivance only is less saturated.
Lighter Color: This works similar Lighten mode simply just on one channel instead of 3.
Overlay (Shift + Option + O): This is probably the nigh normally used out of all the blending modes because it's a moderate combination of the Screen and Multiply modes. It does this according to the base colour; this way, it applies Screen manner to the lighter colors and Multiply mode to the darker ones.
Soft Light (Shift + Option + F): This alloy mode is very like to the Overlay mode only softer.
Hard Light (Shift + Option + H): This creates more contrasting images. Imagine that yous bandage a hard light onto your image, hence the name. The highlights will become more bright and the shadows volition become darker.
Vivid Calorie-free (Shift + Selection + V): Dodges and burns the colour co-ordinate to the blend color. The result is very intense.
Linear Light (Shift + Option + J): This works similarly to the Brilliant Calorie-free blend mode, except that it affects the effulgence instead of the contrast.
Pivot Low-cal (Shift + Option + Z): The effect here depends on the blend colors. If the pixels on the summit layer are darker they'll remain, if they're lighter than the ones underneath, they'll be replaced. It applies the same logic to the lighter pixels. The resulting blend is loftier dissimilarity with very lilliputian mid-tones.
Hard Mix (Shift + Option + L): With this blend way, the channel values will get either 0 or 255. As a consequence, the colors are just blood-red, green, blue, white, and black if you're working in RGB manner. For images in CMYK the colors are white, black, cyan, magenta and yellow.
Departure (Shift + Option + E): Evaluates the effulgence value of each pixel and it and then subtracts the base colour or the blend color depending on which was brighter.
Exclusion (Shift + Option + X): This is almost like Difference but offers a less contrasting issue.
Decrease: Subtracts the blend color from the base color, so like colors cancel each other.
Split up: The process here is similar to Subtract but instead of subtracting the color, it divides it. This will give a very contrasted prototype with blown-out highlights.
Hue (Shift + Selection + U): This blend style keeps the hue as it is and blends the luminance and saturation.
Saturation (Shift + Pick + T): Preserves the saturation while blending the hue and luminance.
Color (Shift + Choice + C): Keeps the color of the layer with a blend of the hue and saturation.
Luminosity (Shift + Option + Y): Preserves the luminosity and blends the rest of the values.

I know this all looks very complicated because the alloy modes are still an abstract idea, but equally you blend ii images together and see the changes practical, information technology will all start to make sense.

That's why implementing the preview way was a very appreciated upgrade in the newer versions of Photoshop. The more you lot utilize layer blending modes, the easier this will become, and y'all'll be picking the right 1 faster and more intuitively.

Footstep 4: Change the Opacity (optional)

Use the opacity slider to change layer parameters in Photoshop

Even if y'all're using the layer alloy modes, you can also combine them with other methods for a more precise result.

For example, yous can also change the opacity. If y'all've found the right blending manner but you experience the effect is too intense, just lower the opacity to reach a more moderate effect.

Go on in heed that some blending modes react differently to the Opacity values than the Make full Opacity values. So, if you're working with any of these, you can try both sliders to run into which works better for you.

These blend modes are Color Burn, Linear Fire, Colour Contrivance, Linear Dodge, Bright Light, Linear Lite, Difficult Mix, and Divergence.

(Y'all can also cheque our article on dodge and burn hither.)

Option 3: Use Photoshop Layer Mask

Footstep 1: Choose your images

Using a layer mask - Photoshop tutorials

Credit: Jeremy Bishop

Steps for using layer mask technique to layer content in Photoshop

Credit: Sergio Rios

In this method for mixing Photoshop layers, yous accept more freedom to choose the ii images that you're going to blend. This is considering using a layer mask allows you to work with only sections of each epitome.

They can also have unlike sizes. That's why the layer mask method is best for creative composites.

Step 2: Open your images

Open the two images in Photoshop. Depending on the photographs that yous're using and the issue that you're after, having them every bit Smart Objects might be useful.

To do this you lot can open up the second paradigm via the Place Embedded command. This volition open the 2d image on a separate layer and automatically make it a Smart Object.

If you used a dissimilar way, for example, Copy and Paste, and so you can turn it into a Smart Object past right-clicking on the layer and choosing Convert to Smart Object on the carte du jour.

Step 3: Arrange the images

Photoshop - mixing an image with another but keeping background colors using a layer mask.

I recommended you use Smart Objects because you lot can manipulate the layer every bit you want without it losing the original data.

And then, you lot can shrink it downwardly or transform it and so change your mind and make it big once more without it losing quality.

In this case, I'yard not going to change anything from this new layer, only I do demand to identify information technology in the right position so that the horizon matches in both images. I tin can easily do this using the move tool.

Footstep 4: Add a layer mask

Layer masks tin make visible or invisible dissimilar parts of a layer without y'all losing any pixels. They tin too add together different grades of transparency. This is why they're such an essential tool for compositing in Photoshop.

You can create a New Layer Mask using the push at the bottom of the Layers panel. Make sure that you lot're in the right layer before applying it.

By default, layer masks will exist fully white, which means that you lot won't see any changes in your paradigm. Yous will, however, see a white thumbnail appear side by side to the thumbnail image of the layer.

When you lot're working on layer masks, anything painted white is fully visible while annihilation in black is blocked or hidden.

Different shades of greyness volition create different transparencies. In other words, a lite gray volition exist more than transparent than a dark grey.

Step 5: Color your layer mask

In the Photoshop layer panel you can see the layer masks thumbnail

At present it''s time to add color to the layer mask that you created. Keep in mind that the darker it is, the less visible it volition get.

What I want to do in this example is to cover the original heaven. For that to happen it needs to be white in the layer mask, and so that information technology's fully visible.

Then the bottom part needs to exist fully hidden considering I want the foreground from the original image to be visible. So I have to make that black in the layer mask.

Finally, to create a realistic effect and fully integrate both images, there needs to be a transition area in between.

For this, I can utilize the gradient tool. Once I actuate it, the options panel becomes available at the superlative.

Here I'll choose a linear gradient that goes from black to white. I'grand going to get out the manner as Normal and the Opacity at 100%.

These settings can be different for y'all depending on your images and what yous're trying to achieve.

Mayhap you don't even need the slope tool if there's no transition between areas or elements. If this is the case, you can use the brush tool and ready the foreground color to black, and pigment over everything you want to cover.

Back to the slope tool that I'm using: yous just have to click where you want to starting time the grading. And so drag across the transition area and let get of the mouse push when you want to finish it.

If the issue is non exactly what y'all needed, you can repeat the process to create a new slope until you're happy. You lot can always check on the result by belongings the Alt central and clicking on the layer mask thumbnail.

This volition let y'all run across the mask without the images. You tin can also disable or delete the layer mask past right-clicking on information technology and choosing the correct command from the menu.

Step 6: Fine-tune

Composite image using layer mask adjustments in Photoshop

Once you're happy with the gradient, there might be some areas that may need some fine-tuning.

You tin can grab the castor tool and brand some targeted editing. Set the default colors in the swatches past clicking on the icon next to them or using the keyboard shortcut D.

When yous do this, blackness will be set up to the foreground color and yous can pigment with it anything else you lot want to hide with your layer mask.

Yous tin can then use the keyboard shortcut X to toggle the swatches from the foreground to the background. This way you lot'll have white to make visible anything y'all paint with it.

Y'all can also add adjustment layers to your images and re-create the layer mask to them by property the Alt fundamental and dragging it to the other new layers.

Call up that you tin as well modify the blending modes in layers with masks. The same goes for the opacity, so y'all can have full control of your composite.