Blending & Compositing

Stack, mask, and combine images with blend modes.

Put two or more images together. This is how you layer textures, drop in shadows and highlights, mask one effect over another, and composite a scene.

Blend#

The Blend node takes two images, A and B, mixes B into A with a blend mode, and lets you dial the strength with opacity.

The Blend node, Multi-Blend, and every Image-node layer share the same 22 modes:

Mode Effect
Normal B replaces A.
Multiply Darkens. Texture overlays, shadows.
Screen Lightens. Highlights, glows.
Overlay Darkens darks, lightens lights. Contrast boost.
Soft Light Gentler Overlay.
Hard Light Stronger Overlay.
Vivid Light Burn or dodge per pixel based on B.
Linear Light Burn or dodge linearly.
Pin Light Replaces pixels based on B brightness.
Color Dodge Brightens A based on B. Strong contrast lift.
Color Burn Darkens A based on B. Inky, saturated.
Linear Burn Like burn but linear.
Darken Picks darker pixel.
Lighten Picks brighter pixel.
Difference Absolute difference. Finds what changed.
Exclusion Softer Difference.
Add Adds values, clips to white.
Subtract Subtracts values, clips to black.
Hue A's luminance + saturation, B's hue.
Saturation A's luminance + hue, B's saturation.
Color A's luminance, B's hue + saturation.
Luminosity A's hue + saturation, B's luminance.

The brush uses a separate, smaller 13-mode set: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Color Dodge, Color Burn, Darken, Lighten, Difference, plus brush-only erase and smudge. (Clone and Heal are two more brush-only modes, reached through the Retouch tools.) It drops the four HSL modes, Exclusion, the Vivid / Linear / Pin Light variants, Linear Burn, Add, and Subtract. See Brush Engine.

Mask#

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

Stacking many at once#

Node What it does
Composite Stack up to 4 images by alpha, later ones on top. Clean, no blend modes.
Multi-Blend Stack up to 8 images, each with its own blend mode and opacity, in one node.

Use a canvas's own layer panel when you are painting into layers; reach for Multi-Blend when the layers come from other nodes.

Next#