Adobe Photoshop CS6 User Manual page 198

lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by
increasing the contrast.
Linear Light Burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source)
is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by
decreasing the brightness.
Pin Light Replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend
color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend
color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.
Hard Mix Adds the red, green and blue channel values of the blend color to the RGB values of the base color. If the resulting sum for a channel is
255 or greater, it receives a value of 255; if less than 255, a value of 0. Therefore, all blended pixels have red, green, and blue channel values of
either 0 or 255. This changes all pixels to primary additive colors (red, green, or blue), white, or black.
Note: For CMYK images, Hard Mix changes all pixels to the primary subtractive colors (cyan, yellow, or magenta), white, or black. The maximum
color value is 100.
Difference Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the
blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces
no change.
Exclusion Creates an effect similar to but lower in contrast than the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color values. Blending
with black produces no change.
Subtract Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts the blend color from the base color. In 8- and 16-bit images, any resulting
negative values are clipped to zero.
Divide Looks at the color information in each channel and divides the blend color from the base color.
Hue Creates a result color with the luminance and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.
Saturation Creates a result color with the luminance and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color. Painting with this mode in an
area with no (0) saturation (gray) causes no change.
Color Creates a result color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in
the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.
Luminosity Creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates the
inverse effect of Color mode.
Lighter Color Compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the higher value color. Lighter Color does not
produce a third color, which can result from the Lighten blend, because it chooses the highest channel values from both the base and blend color
to create the result color.
Darker Color Compares the total of all channel values for the blend and base color and displays the lower value color. Darker Color does not
produce a third color, which can result from the Darken blend, because it chooses the lowest channel values from both the base and the blend
color to create the result color.
Blending mode examples
These examples show the result of painting part of the image's face using each blending mode.
For a video on blending modes, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0012.
Original Image
Behind
Normal, 100% opacity
Clear
Normal, 50% opacity
Darken
Dissolve, 50% opacity
Multiply
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