How to Apply Blend Modes in Microsoft Expression Design 2

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Video Transcript

Now let's talk about how we can get individual aspects of our images to interact with one another using the awesome Blend Mode features here in Expression Design. I am going to go ahead and switch to Abstract Listener.design and I am going to go ahead and double-click on the Zoom Tool to bring that 200% and then we will just pan over so that it fills the screen.

Now for those of you who have been around in the design world for a while, you're probably aware of what Blend Modes are, but for those of you who are not, let's go ahead and explain exactly what Blend Modes are and what they do. Blend Modes are different settings that you can apply to specific aspects of your design to make them interact with other objects in the background or in the foreground.

You can make images lighter, you can make images darker and you can create some really cool effects simply by changing the setting. Now Blend Modes are going to be based on opacity, the lightness or darkness of the current layer you are working on, and also the color values depending on which Blend Modes you choose.

This is a great way to gain some more creative control over each individual aspect of your image and blend them together to create a great finish piece. So let's go ahead and take a look at exactly how we can utilize Blend Modes to change the way this design looks.

I am going to go ahead and I am going to select this white portion here as well as this other white portion here by Shift+clicking and then we will select this other portion here by doing the exact same thing. Now what I want to do is, make all of these little swirls blend in with the background behind it. It's very simple to do. Come over here to the Properties panel, I am going to click on this Down Arrow which says Show advanced properties. When I do so, I have the option now to change the Blend Mode for this particular set of objects that I have selected.

So let's go ahead and take a look at some of these. For instance, there is Darken, which is just going to darken the image. As you can see, it almost disappears completely throughout the image there. So it's probably not the one that I want to use for this particular image. Also, I have Screen, which is going to lighten everything up. As you can see, it turns completely white again.

Then we also have Color Burn, Color Dodge, there is also a Difference which creates a very interesting effect here, actually adds a little bit of bluish tone into the image, kind of cool. I might come back to that in just a moment. Then we have Multiply, which is another darkening Blend Mode. You also have Lighten, which is going to lighten things up.

Now since these objects that I have selected are just completely white, you are not going to see a whole lot of interactivity with the things behind them. If they had a gradient applied to them or another color attribute, we would be seeing a lot interactivity, which is exactly what we are going to do when we select some of these other objects in the background. But for now, we are just giving you a brief overview of exactly how to select these Blend Modes.

So let's go ahead now and we will change this Blend Mode back to the Difference Blend Mode, as we see that gives us the most interactivity with the background layers there. What I am going to do is, I am going to zoom out by using Ctrl+Minus on my keyboard. I am going to pan over just so we can see a little bit more the image.

I will click off so you can see exactly how that made that interact with the objects behind it. As you can see, there are different instances of those images popping through here as well as that image interacting sort of in an overlay fashion over the top of these images in the background.

It has also changed the color of these images as well. So let's go ahead, we will change all of these white aspects here by Shift+clicking on all those. We will change those to a Blend Mode of Difference as well. Now once we do that we are going to get some really interesting interactivity going on. I click off again to show you. We have almost lost his entire face, which is probably not the best Blend Mode to choose for this particular one. So let's go ahead and change that.

That's the beauty of these Blend Modes. You have the ability to go back at any time and change these if you don't like the results. So we can select the background layers here. I am going ahead, I am going to change this back to Normal. As you can see, just simply changing that one portion of the image, brought back that entire area of the face. But I still have all of these interesting colored effects here in the background. So just selecting that one portion was enough to make this design go right back in the direction that I need it to go.

Now another thing we will take a look at here. Let's go ahead and select all of these rainbow like stripes in the background here, just by clicking and dragging with the Selection Tool. I am also going to Shift+click on the background to make sure that I don't have that yellow background selected.

Now with these objects here what we want to do is, we want to move those objects on top of the rest of this design. We can do that by simply coming up to the Arrange menu, choosing Order and selecting Bring to Front. Now once I bring those objects to the front, you are going to notice that they obviously block a lot of this image.

So we can't really see what's going on in the background. Now, all we have to do is change the Blend Mode of this and it will instantly blend itself back in. So we can go through these, let's check out Darken. As you can see, it there creates a really interesting effect where you can see everything behind it.

Then we also have Screen and there is that lightning effect we talked about earlier. Check out again, Color Burn, which almost makes it go away. Color Dodge, which brings back some very interesting effects inside of the image here. But we lose the image out here towards the outer region, so we need to stay away from that.

Also, we have Difference again, which creates again another color shift, creates some very interesting interaction between the face of this image as well as the other blended objects we've had there. Then let's check out Multiply, which is the one that I was thinking that we would use, and that is because, simply, it's going to darken all the objects behind that but allow them to shine through.

Now I am going to take this object, just simply by clicking and dragging it over, just like this. I am going to position it right in the corner of his eye. So it looks like that ray is coming out of his eye like that. Then we will just hold down the Shift key and click and drag to extend this up off the canvas again.

Then if we wanted to bring that back, we could simply just click and drag to bring that back like so. I am going to go and click off so you can see exactly how that works. So now we have almost like this rainbow type effect coming out of his eye, so very interesting effect there as well.

Now if I wanted to do the same thing with these back here, I could simply click and drag to select those. We could Shift+click to deselect the background and then we could first go up to the Arrange menu and we will order those back up to the front. And we could blend those the same way we did the others. We can try Multiply first, as you can see there it blends those nicely. Let's move those up now so that they interact with the other ones as well.

So once we have that position where we like it, we can go ahead then and start to resize that so that it matches up with the other rays that we have here. So I am going to go ahead and am going to shrink this down just a little bit. You get a live preview of exactly where the points are and exactly how big that image is, that little tracing that you see there.

So I am going to go ahead and then and let go and we have that now connected to that other ray there. So it's just a nice continuation all the way across the image. We can go and click off to show you exactly what that looks like now. So now we have that ray almost coming into his eye and then flowing out of his eye as well. So you ca