Blending & Compositing

Stack, mask, and combine images with blend modes.

Put two or more images together. Layer textures, drop in highlights, mask one effect over another.

Blend#

Blend takes A and B, mixes B into A with a mode, and dials the strength with Opacity. Same 22 modes as a canvas layer. The ones you will reach for:

Mode Effect
Normal B replaces A.
Multiply Darkens. Textures, shadows.
Screen Lightens. Highlights, glows.
Overlay / Soft Light / Hard Light Contrast boost, gentle to strong.
Color Dodge / Color Burn Brighten or darken hard. Inky, saturated.
Darken / Lighten Keep the darker or the brighter pixel.
Difference / Exclusion What changed between A and B.
Add / Subtract Plain arithmetic.
Hue / Saturation / Color / Luminosity Take one property from B, keep the rest of A.

Mask#

Mask uses a grayscale image to decide what shows: white reveals, black hides. Any image's brightness works. Invert flips it. Paint a mask by hand on an Image node to control exactly where an effect lands.

Many at once#

Node What it does
Composite Stack up to 4 images by transparency. Later ones on top.
Multi-Blend Stack up to 8, each with its own mode and opacity.

Painting into layers? Use the Image node's own Layers popover. Layers that come from other nodes? Multi-Blend.

Where to next#