Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 171)

Blending modes and layer styles
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Note:
Note:
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Work with layer blending modes
Blending mode reference
Layer styles
Exclude channels from blending
Work with layer blending modes
Blending modes for layers control how each layer blends with or interacts with layers beneath it. Blending modes for layers in After Effects
(formerly referred to as layer modes and sometimes called transfer modes) are identical to blending modes in Adobe Photoshop.
Most blending modes modify only color values of the source layer, not the alpha channel. The Alpha Add blending mode affects the alpha channel
of the source layer, and the silhouette and stencil blending modes affect the alpha channels of layers beneath them.
You can’t directly animate blending modes by using keyframes. To change a blending mode at a certain time, split the layer at that time and apply
the new blending mode to the part of the layer that continues. You can also use the Compound Arithmetic effect, the results of which are similar to
the results of blending modes but can change over time.
Each layer has a blending mode, even if that blending mode is the default Normal blending mode.
To blend colors with a gamma value of 1, choose File > Project Settings and select Blend Colors Using 1.0 Gamma. Deselect this option to
blend colors in the working color space for the project. (See Linearize working space and enable linear blending.)
Blending modes for multiple masks on a single layer are called mask modes.
Some effects include their own blending mode options. For details, see the descriptions of the individual effects.
To cycle through blending modes for selected layers, hold down the Shift key and press - (hyphen) or = (equal sign) on the main keyboard.
These shortcuts provide a convenient way to experiment with the appearance of various blending modes.
To apply a blending mode to selected layers, choose a blending mode from the menu in the Mode column in the Timeline panel or from the
Layer > Blending Mode menu.
To show the Modes column in the Timeline panel, choose Columns > Modes from the panel menu, or click the Expand Or Collapse The
Transfer Controls button
at the lower-left corner of the Timeline panel.
Trish and Chris Meyer provide tips and tricks for using blending modes to achieve a filmic look in this PDF document on the Artbeats website .
Trish and Chris Meyer explain how to use blending modes, layer styles, and the Displacement Map effect to make text blend in to appear to be
part of a surface in the PDF article “Writing on the Wall” on the
Artbeats website .
Blending mode reference
All blending modes described in this section are available for blending between layers. Some of these options are available for paint strokes, layer
styles, and effects.
For in-depth information about the concepts and algorithms behind these blending modes as implemented in several Adobe applications, see
section 7.2.4 of version 1.7 of the
PDF reference on the Adobe website.
The blending mode menu is subdivided into eight categories based on similarities between the results of the blending modes. The category names
do not appear in the interface; the categories are simply separated by dividing lines in the menu.
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