How I blend by Ellay

Hey all! Ellay here. I’m here to show you all how I do my blending (and stay tuned…there is a little freebie in it for ya!) I use PSP, but it should be easy to follow with PS as well.

Okay….here is a layout I did using my Child’s Play kit:

I wanted a subtle blend to put in the white space, so I picked a picture (with blending, it doesn’t always have to be the best picture, either):

Well, I didn’t want the background, just the little laughing face, so I used my freehand selection tool, set the feathering to 200 (for very soft edges), and selected the area I wanted. I then copied the selected area and pasted it as a new image. With the new image, I desaturated it to make it black and white and then added contrast (I always add contrast to photos that I blend, but that’s a personal preference). Then I added the image to my layout:

Cute, but I wanted it to be more subtle. Here is where you can play with blending. It will be different for each picture, so it’s best to try them all. You can use burn, dodge, screen, overlay…whatever your program has. Then, adjust the opacity to your liking. With this layout, I didn’t even use any of the blending modes. I just reduced the opacity to about 25-27 to achieve the look I wanted. And, here is the final product:

Really, it’s just a matter of playing around to see what you like best. :)

And, I have a freebie for you, too! I have turned this layout into a quickpage. You can give your own blending a try with it if you want! Just click the image to download (psst….there is also a coupon to my store in the download). Thanks for stopping by!