Q: Blending modes? What are they?
A: The most powerful tool for excellent coloring techniques!

Blending modes can be accessed from any of Photshops painting tools or from the layers themselves. The are chosen from a pull down menu like the one shown below:


Blending modes come in all kinds of flavors but for this tutorial we will be concentrating on the 2 most used modes: "Screen" and "Multiply".

Screen Mode:
Screen mode takes the base color and adds light to it. Basically it's an easy way to get a lighter value of your base color. Great for adding hightlites. I'll show you how it works:

The color on the far left is our base fill color.
With that same base color selected. Change your airbrush properties to 12% pressure / Blending mode = Screen.

1 = 1 pass over the base color
2 = 2 passes over the base color
3 = 3 passes over the base color

See? It increases the light value of the fill color by screening it against itself until it reaches White. You can also screen against the base color with a different color for a varied effect. A good example of this would be a blue object under a red light would be screened with a red color to realistically simulate the effect a red ligt source has on a blue object..try it!

Multiply Mode:
Multiply is the opposite of screen. It will darken the base fill color against itself until finally it reaches Black. Take a look:

Airbrush properties = 12% pressure / blending mode multiply

1 = 1 pass over the base color
2 = 2 passes over the base color
3 = 3 passes over the base color

Cool, eh? No more searching for the perfect shade value for a color. Just multiply it against itself with blending modes! Seem too simple?..don't worry...it gets more complex ;)