Change the blend mode of a layer in Pixelmator Pro on Mac
Blend modes determine how the colors in multiple layers are mixed or combined to create different effects. When a layer’s blend mode is set to Normal (the default), its pixels are not mixed with other layers. However, other blend modes apply complex calculations, mixing pixels in different ways.
When you apply a blend mode to a layer (the blend layer), its color pixels are mixed with the color pixels in visible layers underneath it (the base layers). For example, when the blend mode is set to Lighten, its pixels are compared to the base layer underneath it (and any other layers not obstructed by the first base layer), and only the lightest pixels from all those layers are preserved, resulting in a brighter composite, wherever the affected layers overlap in the canvas.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
At the top of the Layers sidebar, click
next to Opacity, then choose a blend mode:
Normal: The default blend mode for all layers. No color mixing occurs between the blend and the base layers.
Darken: Compares the luminance of blend layer and base layer colors and keeps only the darker colors.
Multiply: Keeps only the darkest colors of the blend layer, evenly mixing the midtones of both layers. The result is always a darker image.
Color Burn: Intensifies the darker areas of a base layer by saturating the midtones and reducing the highlights. The Color Burn blend mode is useful for making image colors more intensive. If the blend layer color is white, the image in the canvas is unchanged.
Linear Burn: Similar to Multiply, except the midtones are slightly darker than Multiply and less saturated than Color Burn.
Darker Color: Compares the color values of the blend layer and base layer and retains only the darker values.
Lighten: The opposite of the Darken blend mode. Emphasizes the highlights of each overlapping layer by making the darker color values translucent and keeping the lighter color values fully opaque. If the base layer color is the same as the color of the blend layer, the image in the canvas is unchanged.
Screen: The opposite of the Multiply blend mode. Emphasizes the highlights of each overlapping layer, evenly mixing the midtones of both layers. The result is always a lighter image.
Color Dodge: The opposite of the Color Burn blend mode. Intensifies the lighter areas of a base layer by saturating the midtones and increasing highlights. The Color Dodge blend mode is useful for making image colors more intense. If the blend layer color is black, the image in the canvas is unchanged.
Linear Dodge: The opposite of the Linear Burn blend mode and similar to Screen, except that lighter midtones in overlapping regions become more intense.
Lighter Color: The opposite of the Darker Color blend mode. Compares the color values of the blend and the base layers and retains only the color values that are lighter.
Overlay: Intensifies contrast by darkening colors that are darker than 50% gray and washing out colors that are lighter than 50% gray. The Overlay blend mode is useful for combining areas of vivid color in two images.
Soft Light: Similar to the Overlay blend mode, but offers slightly milder contrast and more even tinting. The order of two layers affected by the Soft Light blend mode is important. The Soft Light blend mode is useful for softly tinting a base layer by mixing it with the colors in a blend layer.
Hard Light: Intensifies contrast by mixing colors depending on the brightness of the base color values. Colors darker than 50% gray are darkened as if adding the Multiply blend mode, and colors lighter than 50% gray are lightened as if adding the Screen blend mode.
Vivid Light: Similar to the Hard Light blend mode. Colors darker than 50% gray are darkened by increasing contrast, and colors lighter than 50% gray are lightened by decreasing contrast. Reversing the two overlapping layers results in subtle differences in how the overlapping midrange color values are mixed together.
Linear Light: Similar to the Hard Light blend mode, except that overlapping midrange color values are mixed together with higher contrast.
Pin Light: If the blend layer colors are darker than 50% gray, color values lighter than 50% gray are replaced, while the values darker than 50% gray don’t change. If the blend layer colors are lighter than 50% gray, color values darker than 50% gray are replaced, while the values lighter than 50% gray don’t change. The result might appear alternately tinted or solarized and can be useful for creating interesting artistic effects.
Hard Mix: Increases contrast by boosting saturation of the overlapping midrange color values. Although the order of two layers doesn’t affect the overall look of two layers blended using the Hard Mix blend mode, there might be subtle differences. This blend mode can be useful for creating posterization effects.
Difference: Looks at the difference between the color values of the base and the blend layers. The larger the difference between the base and the blend layer colors, the brighter the resulting color. For instance, if the blend and the base layers are exactly the same, the Difference blend result is 100% black.
Exclusion: Similar to Difference but with a slightly lower contrast.
Subtract: In areas where the base layer is lighter than the blend layer, the base layer is darkened. In areas where the base layer is darker than the blend layer, the colors are inverted.
Divide: The opposite of the Subtract blend mode. In areas where the base layer is darker than the blend layer, the base layer colors are lightened.
Hue: Mixes the luminance and saturation of the base layer colors and the hue of the blend layer colors.
Saturation: Mixes the luminance and hue of the base layer and the saturation of the blend layer.
Color: Mixes the luminance of the base layer and the hue and saturation of the blend layer. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.
Luminosity: The opposite of the Color mode. Mixes the hue and saturation of the base layer and the luminance of the blend layer.