Layer Blend Mode
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For this tutorial, you'll need to download the following two images:
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nene.jpg
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Ambrosia.jpg
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Download each image by right-clicking on its image above. If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer, when the popup menu appears, click on "Save Picture As..." and save the files to the directory of your choice. If you're using Netscape Communicator, select "Save Image As..." from the popup menu.
Warning! Now that you've saved the image to your hard drive, please don't resave the file until you read the discussion about saving near the end of the tutorial.
Open up nene.jpg in PSP. At first glance, this may look like a straight-forward black and white image. However, if you go to Colors > Count Colors Used, an informational popup window tells you, "The number of unique colors in this layer is 256." We need to reduce this image to two colors.
Go to Colors > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast and set the Brightness to 0 and Contrast to 100. This will reduce the image to two colors: black and white. Click the OK button.
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You can verify that there are now only two colors in the image by using the Count Colors command again.
Open Ambrosia.jpg. Go to Selections > Select All. A marquee will appear around the whole image.
Click on the Copy button.
Click on nene.jpg to make it the active image and go to Edit > Paste > As New Layer. Nene will disappear for just a moment. :-) You can close Ambrosia.jpg.
Type a lower-case "L" to bring up the Layers dialog box. The Layer Blend Mode is currently set to Normal.
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Click on the down arrow in the Layer Blend Mode drop-down list and select Difference. Whoa...WHAT a "Difference"! This looks pretty good but you can make it look even better. |
Go to Colors > Adjust > Gamma Correction... to open the Gamma Correction dialog box. Make sure the Link box is checked. If you want to watch the effect your changes will have on your image as you adjust the gamma, also check Auto-Proof and drag the Gamma Correction box by its title bar so it doesn't cover up nene.jpg. Move the linked sliders until you find an effect that you like.
This adjustment is purely a matter of personal taste. I chose Red, Green, and Blue values of 0.78.
Merge the two layers by going to Layers > Merge > Merge All (flatten). (You can also accomplish this by right-clicking on one of the layer buttons in the Layer dialog box and selecting Merge > Merge All (flatten) from the popup menu.) You can close the Layers dialog box now, if you like.
This image presents a challenge when we go to save it because of its gradient background and because a sharp image is critical. This image contains nearly 40,000 colors. Here are the results of saving it in different formats:
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FORMAT |
FILE SIZE (KB) |
RESULTS |
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GIF |
39 |
The image retains its sharpness but because the color depth has been reduced to 256, you will see a less-than-smooth transition between colors in the gradient area. However, it's not too noticeable. |
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JPEG |
81 |
Don't go there! The loss of sharpness due to the compression in this format is too extreme. |
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PNG |
108 |
This format retains all the colors as well as the sharpness of the image. |
It's a toss-up between GIF and PNG (size versus quality). The choice is yours, depending on your requirements.
The Last Word
- You're not limited to using the Ambrosia gradient. The effect is best if the gradient is composed of multiple colors, however. To use a different gradient, resize it to make it the same size as the line drawing that you'll be using.
- If you decide to use your own black and white graphic, make sure to increase the color depth to 16 million colors before you begin the tutorial.
- It's fun to try out the various Layer Blend Modes. You can stumble across some pretty interesting results.
- Here's another example of this technique:
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