Using Different Layer Blending Options in Photoshop

Hi everyone! I am Alicia. Here in the blogging world I am Lili (lee-lee). Don’t know why, no one but my niece and nephew call me that. I have been blogging for over a year now and have had my photography blog for almost a year. These days I call it Sanukipity Photography. I made up Sanukipity. I love how Sanuk means fun and happiness in Thai and Serendipity is one of my favorite words. Put the two together and you get chance discoveries of fun and happiness. How better to explain photography?

Sanuk + Serendipity = Sanukipity!

I make it no secret that I love using textures, when the picture calls for it. I LOVE Kim Klassen’s textures. I think I now have all she has ever shared. Today I am going to share with you a comparison of how you can use the textures in your photos, when using Photoshop Elements and I think it is the same in Photoshop.

Here is the picture I am going to use. At this point I would have already edited the picture how I wanted it, cropping or whatever needed to be done to it.

The Original Photo.

And this is the texture I am going to add to it, it is Kim Klassen’s Stained Linen.

Stained Linen Texture

From here I am going to just show you a comparison of blending options available in Photoshop. There are some great explanations out there on how to use textures and layers but I just want to show you different looks you can get with different blending options of the Stained Linen texture layer.

Layer Blending Options in Photoshop

Granted, I don’t use most of these. In fact this is the first time I have experimented with many of them. I tend to use Multiply, Soft Light and Overlay. It depends on the picture and the texture I am using. You can also change the Opacity of the layer type. Here is what Multiply looks like at two different opacities.

The one layer type that I left out of the comparison is Screen. It has a different effect and I wanted you to see how it works better with a black texture. If you were to use a snowy overlay or texture, Screen would be the one to use then too.

I hope that everyone learned something useful.

Come check me out on Tuesdays at Sanukipity Photography when I almost always have a textured photo to share.

Alicia Ellsworth

I am an aspiring photographer who lives in the semi desert of New Mexico. I started taking pictures of my crafts and then found other photography blogs and started following their challenges. Bringing me more and more into the photography world. I dream of one day traveling coast to coast in a mobile home, taking pictures everywhere I go for a magazine or something (and flea marketing on the way!).