Welcome

- Hi, I'm Deke McClelland. Welcome to Photoshop Masking and Compositing: Advanced Blending. My detailed guide to understanding and employing the Byzantine but extremely useful network of blending options in Photoshop. I'll start by introducing you to the core concepts. What blending is, how the most important options work, as well as all the short cuts. Then we move into the specific blend modes. I show you not only uses for each of the blend modes, of which there are many, but I also try to give you a since for how the modes work and what purpose they serve.

There's no end of possible compositing scenarios and I want you to have a clear sense for what you can accomplish and how so that you're never left frustrated or scratching your head. I wrap things up by showing you how to use the luminance-exclusion slider bars, as well as the 'Blend If' option. All of which allow you to drop out or force through specific luminance levels without masking a single pixel. Now, word of warning up front. Chapter Two is all about the math.

For those of you who like and understand basic formulas, you'll find this immeasurably useful. But if you don't like math, no problem, just skip Chapter Two entirely. Don't watch a single movie. You won't miss a thing, I promise you. And with that, I turn you over to what I hope to be, the most comprehensive discussion of blending ever assembled.