Welcome to our Photoshop in 60 Seconds series, in which you can learn a Photoshop skill, feature, or technique in just a minute!
Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Using Blend If
The Blend If sliders are one of Adobe Photoshop's most powerful layer blending options. They give you an incredibly nuanced control over how information from two separate layers is combined based on their luminosity values.
In the screencast below, I show the Blend If sliders in action.
How to Use Blend If
Let's look at Blend If in action. I want to give this photo a Hollywood style teal orange tone.
I've got two solid color layers set to the Color Layer Blend Mode, one called Shadows which is teal, and the other called Highlights, which is orange.
I want the teal to only effect the dark areas of the image. To do that, I Double-click on the layer to get the Layer Options Panel. Using the Underlying Layer slider, I grab the white triangles and drag them to the left. Option-clicking splits the triangle so we can have a better blended effect.
Do the same for the orange highlights. This time, however, we want to preserve the shadows so drag the black triangles to the right. Once again, Split them to feather the blend.
The only thing left to do is tweak the overall Layer Opacities and you're done.
Want to see this in action? Check out the video above to see this lesson at work!
A Bit More Detail
Want to learn more about Adobe Photoshop's vast tools and settings? Check out these tutorials below:
Split Toning Colour Pictures in Photoshop: Theory and Practice
Create a Rich Purple and Gold Look in Adobe Photoshop
Quick Tip: the Magic of Photoshop's Blend If
Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Layer Blend Modes
60 Seconds!?
This is part of a new series of quick video tutorials on Tuts+. We’re aiming to introduce a range of subjects, all in 60 seconds—just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this video and what else you’d like to see explained in 60 seconds!
