It's been a month since I tried photomanipulation. Indeed, difficult at the first try (
confusing, i may add) but through lots of tutorials and perseverance and determination as ingredients photomanipulation turned out to be quite easy.
Blending, an important technique in photomanipulation, is one of the basics a beginner must learn. Photoshop CS3 offers 25 different blend modes. They ranges from Normal to Overlay to Luminosity.
I experiment a lot with these blend modes trying to come up with the right combo. Overlay, Screen, Soft Light, and Multiply are the ones that I am using frequently. Still, the remaining modes are worth using depending on what you are going to create.
Choosing the right blend mode is time consuming
(this is true for a beginner like me). To change the blending, you go to the layers palette, to the drop down menu, and click whatever blend mode you want to take effect. If you're not satisfied, repeat the process until you get what you want. Tired of doing that? Here is the list of shortcut keys that I've searched in the net.
Shift + Alt +
- Normal ( N )
- Dissolve ( I )
- Darken ( K )
- Multiply ( M )
- Color Burn ( B )
- Linear Burn ( A )
- Lighten ( G )
- Screen ( S )
- Color Dodge ( D )
- Linear Dodge ( W )
- Overlay ( O )
- Soft Light ( F )
- Hard Light ( H )
- Vivid Light ( V )
- Linear Light ( J )
- Pin Light ( Z )
- Hard Mix ( L )
- Hue ( U )
- Difference ( E )
- Exclusion ( X )
- Saturation ( T )
- Color ( C )
- Luminosity ( Y )
In order for these shortcuts to work be sure that the move tool is activated
( Press V )
