Composite: Blend Modes & Double-Exposure

This fun project uses two of my own images combined with a texture I purchased from Adobe Stock. Double-Exposure is a very popular technique on social media and in commercial image making. This tutorial, however, seeks to explore a very important aspect of compositing workflows – Photoshop’s ability to hide black, grey or white makes some compositing lightening fast and massively reduce the need for complex, time-consuming layer masks.

The learning to take away from this tutorial is that the Screen blend mode promotes white and hides black and the Multiply mode promotes black and hides white. If you have graphic shapes with a white or back background you may be able to avoid masking altogether. The importance of compositing with stock images that have a white or black background makes some compositing as fast as a single click on the appropriate blend mode. Texture overlays are often applied using the Overlay or Soft light blend modes, but in this project (because of the white background) Multiply at a lower opacity becomes the appropriate blend mode.

Note > The tutorial simplifies the workflow from the finished version you see at the beginning of the movie (with the aim of shortening the length of the movie). If you want to match the version you see at the start of the movie, you just need to duplicate the  layer with the trees, flip this duplicate layer and add some layer masks.

The images for this movie tutorial can be downloaded from my Creative Cloud account:

https://adobe.ly/2hnt0nB

https://adobe.ly/2hl8eFt

The Grunge Concrete Texture file is file number #77059719 and can be purchased from Adobe Stock

My own textures can be downloaded for free from here: Borders and Textures: Gritty, Grungy Edges

Please respect my Intellectual Property by NOT sharing these images. Thanks.