Exploring Blending Modes and Effects

Here's what I need. The video covers everything below it. There is a feature in graphics programs called blending modes that allow you to mix this layer with what's behind it instead of like covering it to kind of like blend through, to blend together.

Okay, very common in Photoshop, Illustrator,  graphics programs. Okay, very common. Now, I can't tell you what most blending modes will do off top of my head, but I can tell you what two of them will do off top of my head.

Okay, multiply turns off the brighter pixels on a layer. Screen turns off the darker pixels on a layer. And by the way, they're groups, so there's a whole bunch of them that are similar,  by the way.

Okay, if you right click on a layer, blending modes, that's the list. Okay, and again, if you use Photoshop, same ones in Photoshop and Illustrator,  they're not original at all. The ones in this group, add light and screen,  turn off the darker pixels.

The ones in this group turn off the lighter parts. Okay, the other ones got no clip. They did all those things.

Now, so there's a list. I can right click, no problem at all. There's also a list I can make display right in here.

I think I didn't yet. Okay, so the interface in the timeline can be changed. To the right of the names of your layers, there should be a series of little buttons,  little switches.

Okay, and they have different symbols, like this is someone sticking their head over a wall, basically. Okay, these add things to the layer, like that's motion blur. Okay, but at the bottom of that column, there's a button that says toggle switches and modes.

If I click that, I get this window, which by the way, I'm going to drag it out,  so it's a little wider, by the way, so I don't see it. That's the blending modes. So this is the other place I can see it.

So right click or reveal this window. Okay, and I'm just going to set, what does it tell me to do? Sorry. Screen, it says use screen.

And that's what happens. Now I get that. The darker pixels are mostly hidden.

Now, by the way, if this had been pure black and pure white, it would be a lot cleaner,  but it is not pure black and pure white. So I'm going to add an effect to change what I just did. That's effects and presets.

Yay, Kobe Bowl. So Photoshop has effects that can alter color and tonality. You may be familiar with things like levels, curves, brightness, contrast.

All three of those, by the way, are here in that panel. Hue saturation, also here in that panel. A lot of filters and effects from other programs, most notably Photoshop, by the way, are here.

They're effects here. Okay. The instructions have you use one called levels, but if you like curves better,  use curves.

It doesn't care. Same result, honestly. Levels.

Okay. So by the way,  ignore anything in this group called animation presets. Ignore this.

Animation presets are effects with saved properties already, usually with keyframes. So they automate something. Color correction levels.

Okay. Now, by the way, if you don't want to search in effects and presets,  you can also right-click on a layer, effects, that's the list. If you know where things are grouped up, and by the way, all the curves, levels, and stuff are color correction, by the way,  you can go here.

The effects and presets panel on the right has a search field. Type a name. You can find something.

Right-clicking on the layer effect, you have to know the grouping. There's also a menu on top, by the way, the same thing. Effects, same grouping.

If you feel more comfortable doing that, fine. All of the stuff like the adjustment layers in Photoshop are pretty much under color correction. So like, that's not color correction.

Sorry, that's generated. Sorry. Color correction is there.

Levels. Okay. Curves.

Okay. Brightness and contrast. Again, same thing you do in Photoshop.

Okay. By the way, all three of those would do what I need to do here. So I could use any of them.

It wouldn't really matter. Okay. Hue saturation,  again, also from Photoshop.

That wouldn't do what I want, so don't use that. Okay. So I'm going to use, I said levels, levels, levels.

I'm going to make the effects controls panel a little wider so I can see the controls. The instructions have you do this. Drag the top slider in, which increases the contrast of the smoke layer.

So the darker areas become darker,  which means they get hidden by the blending mode better, and the brighter areas become brighter,  so that means they get revealed by the blending mode better. Okay. If I go back to normal,  which means no blending, that's what happened.

I got a much higher contrast look. Okay. Why did the smoke turn yellow? So the lights I was using were tinted yellow.

That's why the smoke is yellow. Okay. I'm going to get rid of that in a second.

So it's there. If you want to try something other than screen, try one of the others. They'll do basically the same thing.

Okay. Now I can see the smokish stuff above this. And then that.

But it looks kind of more like snow right now than actual smoke, so let's change that, shall we? So one, I want to blur this. When you add an effect, the program reveals a panel called effect controls,  and now it was hidden behind project the entire time. But effect controls is one of the places where you can control your effects.

So effects and presets is a library. Effect controls edits the effects. So added from here or right click, whatever's the difference, edited here.

Okay. The other place you can see effects is in the timeline. If I open up the layer, I can see effects now.

I open up that. I open up that. I'll see the controls.

Notice, by the way, how this is not anywhere near as bright looking as up here. Effect controls has more space, so it gives you a more visual control. The timeline limits what you're going to see.

So you edit effects from effect controls, basically. You can adjust whatever you want. I told you some numbers for this, but again, I just pulled the sliders and it's cool.

Adjust that to your heart's content. Now blurring it. I want to add another effect.

I want to add another effect. Okay. I want to add a blur.

I want to add Gaussian blur. I don't know how to pronounce whatever. G-A-U-S-S-I-A and blur.

Okay. So I could search for effects and presets, but I know that all blurs are in a group called blurs. So in my effects and controls right here, I'm going to right click on empty space.

That's the list of effects I can add. Okay. Some of these, I have more than you because I pay for some, by the way, but these mostly are the ones you have.

Okay. Blur and sharpen, Gaussian blur. I'm just going to raise the blurriness until it looks more like smoke.

Now it's more like smoke. I might want to lower the opacity of the layer, by the way, which would be back-end properties. I want to add one more thing.

I want to color this smoke. I'm going to right click,  color correction. Tritone is what I'm going to use.

There's also one here called toner that would work too. CC toner would work as well. You could also use hue saturation if you wanted,  by the way, same difference.

Tritone. Bright areas get this color. Dark areas get that color.

Everything else gets that color. That's why I turned brown, by the way. I'm going to find the pink pick.

I think I want pink smoke. Eyedropper, pink. Now my smoke is pink tinted, like that.

By the way, if you want, you can just click on the color box and pick whatever you want. If you want, you can have like red smoke like that. Yeah,  it's nice.

I like that. But again, you can adjust that however you like. You can adjust any of the properties forever.

And again, notice they can be animated even though I'm not doing that. Okay. The instructions have you make another copy of the smoke.

But before you do that, it's too fast. That's really fast. I want it to be slower.

I want it to be one third the speed that it is currently playing at. I want it to be about one third as fast. Okay.

That is a property I can do to a video layer. Pretty much any video layer. I'm going to right click on the layer.

I'm going to look through my list of options to find the one called time. Time. Okay.

Time stretch. Time stretch basically can shorten. It basically speeds up or slows down a layer.

It's not animatable. It is a global change. So the entire layer becomes this speed or this speed.

If you wanted to animate the change, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, I would use the first choice timer mapping. That lets me keyframe time. Okay.

But I just want to slow everything down. So time stretch. Okay.

Stretch factor. Larger numbers above 100. Slow it down.

Switch it out. Lower numbers speed it up. The instructions say 300.

Okay. It's going to lock the beginning of the layer in place. So it's going to extend that way to the right.

You can change that if you wanted to, by the way, but do layer end point. Notice now this runs off my timeline. And now it is one third as fast.

Okay. I don't like that, though. So what the program is doing is holding each frame of the video for three frames now.

One frame now holds for three. One frame now holds for three. The animation looks really jerky.

It looks like actually 1960 style smoke. Okay. Seriously, that's what it looks like.

So I'm going to do one more thing on that right click menu. Frame blending. I'm going to choose one of those two choices.

What it basically does is it makes the slow-mo effect look nicer. The one I chose, frame mixed, fades the frames together so it doesn't look quite so jerky. The other one, have fun with that.

But play with it. It's kind of cool. For this,  it's not really going to matter which one you use.

But the second choice, the one I didn't do, pixel motion, I've seen it make, when people are moving, like new arms and legs. So it's a little trickier. I don't want that.

But in this case, it wouldn't matter. You don't want to be fine. And then add more smoke.

By the way, if I add more smoke, I'd actually duplicate it and just drag the layer so it starts later. That's all it is. The same thing that was done for the photo.

Duplicate the layer. Smoke one becomes smoke two. And it has you start it at five seconds on the timeline.

So you'll get levels of smoke. Wait, I'm sorry. That's not four.

It has started at 410. I'm sorry. And then it has you pick its color from the blue and yellow one.

So you get blue smoke or yellow smoke or whatever you please. Okay. You don't have to follow my colors.

So you get like that, levels of smoke. The instructions also have you lower the opacity of the smoke, but I like it when it's bright. So I'm going to leave it like it is.

But have fun with that. Okay. Try different blending modes.

We use screen in this,  but the different blending modes will give you a different result. Okay. Try different settings on the levels and you'll get different results as well.

It's kind of fun. Have fun with that. Cool.

So that's 2A. Well, it's the first app of 2A. You're going to stop at, I'll say, I'll write the instructions, but you're going to stop on page, top page 44.