I'm by no means an expert on blend modes, but you can see bits of it in several of the tutorials I have already. What I did here was little different from what I did with the Street photos from last weekend, it just used a different, more extreme B&W edit underneath. I use "Screen" mode in the tutorial I did for lightening the dirt spots.
Here's a link from YouTube for a search for blending mode tutorials...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=photoshop+blending+modes
The thing is, there are "standard" ways to use them, like with textures or things like High Pass or Emboss filters. And then there's just using them and seeing what you get. To understand what I mean, go into PS, make a copy of your background layer, apply some adjustments, or simply desaturate it. Then, click on the arrow tool at the top of the stack, and then click on the blending mode in the layers panel, which should be set to
normal. Now, hold down the shift key and press the '+' and '-' keys on the keyboard. This will scroll you through the various blend modes, apply the effect. Some of them will be just unusable, and some will be rather mind blowing. When you find something cool, see what changing the opacity level does. This is
precisely what I do when I say, "I'm playing with blend modes" - I've got something that's OK, but I'm not happy with it, so what
else can I do that I can't plan for?
There's just so much I don't know about them yet that for me to do a tutorial on "blend modes" would be ridiculous. I've already done 2 or three that show specific uses of particular ones, and as I get to know others I'll surely show you that as well. Until then, YouTube is your friend. It's what taught me.
