Blend Modes at a Glance

A look at layer blending modes, to get a better picture of what they do and where to use them. These examples are done in Procreate, and info about how they work is from the Procreate handbook, plus my own observations. I haven't done a comparison to see if there are any major differences between these and the blend modes in Photoshop/GIMP/etc.

A layer's blend mode combines the colors of that layer with the colors of the visible layers below. Blend modes have different results depending on the color values of each layer. They are non-destructive, so they're good for experimenting and making adjustments on the fly. Some blend modes have the same result no matter which layer is on top. Otherwise, the blend layer has the most influence. I'll note that 'color values' are complicated, and go beyond the RGB and HSV sliders in your average paint program. There are additional values like Chroma and Luminosity that calculate the percieved brightness of colors, different colorspaces for printing and photography and such.