By John Beardsworth
First Edition November 2005
ISBN: 0-596-10020-5
176 pages, $29.95 US

Layer blending modes have been part of Photoshop for years, but because they're not easy to understand at first glance, this immensely useful feature tends to get overlooked. Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers is the only recipe-format book that covers blending modes specifically for digital photographers.

The book covers:

• Changing hue, saturation, luminosity, and color
• Correcting basic color shifts
• Repairing highlights
• Sharpening or softening focus
• Adjusting lighting for subtle or dramatic effects
• Controlling contrast
• Creating surface effects and textures
• Adding interest to landscapes and urban scenes
• Enhancing portraits of children and adults
• Simulating graphics arts techniques

and much more.

Unlike Photoshop's built-in filters, blending modes don't change the actual pixels that make up an image, so their effects are completely reversible. There are over 20 blending modes in Photoshop CS2, which range from those which darken and lighten images (such as Darken, Multiply, Lighten, and Screen) to modes that increase contrast (such as Overlay and Hard Light) and adjust color (such as Hue, Color. Luminosity, and Saturation).

In addition to covering each blending mode in detail, John Beardsworth, a London-based photographer and author, takes the reader through a whole collection of recipes that demonstrate how to use blending modes alone or in combination to fix problem photos, add subtle effects, and create dramatic images that are truly unique.

With clear, step-by-step instructions, real-world projects, an easy-to-follow format, and hundreds of full-color examples, Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers is shows you how to use blending modes to achieve a wide range of image adjustments and special effects-without having to first learn everything there is to know about Photoshop.

Sample Excerpt and Code Examples

Member Reviews

Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers
Reviewed by Michael Roman
This was a great introduction to Layers blending modes, a topic I was mostly in the dark about before reading this book. What I found most useful were the examples of what could be done with the blending modes in the many examples given in the Blending Modes in Detail section. However I found the largest section, Recipes, less useful. There are many techniques you can do to your photos, but most are not what I would choose for my images. They are techniques that turn out highly stylized images, which are not for everybody. The one recipe that I really liked and found exceptionally useful was the Gentle Skin recipe. From a personal perspective of the usefulness of this book, I would rate it 5 out of 10, but from the overall layout and information content, it looks like a clear 8.