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Using Blend Modes and Opacity

When using a tool in Edit, there are blend mode and opacity tools. These tools give you creative control and let you combine the two to create a new image. You can apply blend modes and opacity to an entire image or to a selected part of an image.

Opacity

The Opacity slider changes the opacity of the edited image. It gives you control of how much of the edit should be visible on the image.

Blend Modes

The ability to control how the edits and the image merge means that other blend modes besides opacity can be used to affect the final image.

Normal	Pixels in the edited image are combined with those in the original. Only opacity affects this blend.
Screen	Combines the edited image color with the inverse of the original photo color, resulting in a color that is the same or lighter.
Multiply	Combines the edited image color with the original photo to produce a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black; multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged.
Dodge	Combines the edited image color with the original pixels in the photo to produce a lighter color.
Burn	Combines the edited image color with the original pixels in the photo to produce a darker color.
Overlay	Preserves the shadows and highlights of the lower layers while applying either Multiply or Screen blend mode based on the original image area's color values.
Difference	Subtracts the edited image color from the color of the original photo. Any white in the edited image produces a true negative of the color in the image, while black produces no effect.
Darken	Applies pixels in the edited image that are darker than the original image. Pixels in the edited image that are lighter than the original image disappear (based on RGB values).
Lighten	Applies pixels in the edited image that are lighter than the original image. Pixels in the edited image that are darker than the original image disappear (based on RGB values).
Hard Light	Adds strong highlights or shadows by applying Multiply or Screen based on the original image area's color values.
Soft Light	Adds soft highlights or shadows by darkening or lightening based on the original image area's color values.
Hue	Applies the hue value of colors in the edited image to the color of the original image areas.
Saturation	Applies the saturation value of colors in the edited image to the color of the original image areas.
Color	Applies the hue and saturation of the edited image to the image. This blend does not affect the luminance of the original image.
Luminosity	Applies the lightness value of colors in the edited image to the color of the original image areas.
Dissolve	Applies some pixels from the edited image layer onto the original image, resulting in specks of color. The Opacity slider controls the amount of speckling.
Exclusion	Like Difference, but with less contrast, Exclusion subtracts the blend color from the color of the underlying photo. Any white in the blend color produces a true negative of the color in the image, while black produces no effect.
Vivid Light	Combines the blend color with the underlying pixels in the photo by increasing or decreasing contrast to produce a lighter or darker color, as determined by the blend color.
Pin Light	When the light source is lighter than 50% gray, the pixels darker than the light source are replaced. Pixels lighter than the light source remain the same. When the light source is darker than 50% gray, the pixels lighter than the light source are replaced. Pixels darker than the light source remain the same.
Linear Light	Dodges or burns by lightening or darkening the brightness value, depending on the blend color.
Hard Mix	Applies red, green, and blue channel values of the blend color to the RGB values of the image.
Subtract	Subtracts the blend color from the image (base) color in each channel.
Divide	Divides the blend color from the image (base) color.
Darker Color	From the blend color and the image (base) color, the lower channel values are chosen.
Lighter Color	From the blend color and the image (base) color, the higher channel values are chosen.

You can use the Edit Brush to paint an effect onto specific areas of your image, and then set the blend mode and opacity slider to change the way the effect is applied.

The blend mode and opacity controls apply to many of the editing tools and special effects filters. When it does not make sense to have these controls, they are omitted. The blend mode and opacity controls are not on the following tools: Crop, Resize, Lens Distortion Correction, Perspective Correction, Rotate, Flip, Watermark, Text, Red Eye Reduction, Repair Tool, Selections.