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Adobe Photoshop CC - Essentials Training

Using blending modes as color accents in Photoshop

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hi there, this video is about Blending Modes and using it to make these kind of colored box accents. See the logo down the bottom there, and this big kind of, I'm going to say Fuchsia box, at the top there. Super easy to do, let's learn how to do it now in Adobe Photoshop. 
First up, let's open the image we're going to work with. You can use any JPEG. If you want to follow exactly, we'll use '10 Blending Modes', and go to 'Color Accent.psd'. Now this is something we worked on earlier. If you can't remember, or you didn't do that earlier tutorial, there's three layers. I'm going to turn the top two off so it's just the background. What we did is we copied the model out on to her own layer. There she's at the top there, and in between we put this text. So that when they're all piled on top of each other we've got this cool layered effect, but you can do this just with a plain old JPEG. You just won't get to tuck it behind the model. 
So first up let's grab the 'Rectangle Tool'. You might have had something else selected, let's grab the 'Rectangle Tool'. Up here where it says Stroke, I'm going to have 'no' Stroke. Where it says Fill, I'm going to pick a color. I'm going to use this little Hue Slider. The Swatches are cool, but I'm going to use the Hue Slider, just pick something like-- what I actually want is, can you see, I just use the Eyedropper Tool. If you got this Hue Picker open you can just click in here, I want kind of that dark green, so I want to maybe darken it down a little bit. Once you found a color, click 'OK'. 
Now what we're going to do is click, hold, and drag out a rectangle. I kind of wanted it something like that, right? Let's fancy it up a little bit, I'm going to-- if yours is locked like this, I'm going to break the link. Then click, hold, and drag that to the right, you can see over there. We're going to get one rounded corner. And the magic really happens, is with this layer selected, like in the last one, we're going to look at these different options. Now in our case Dissolve never seems to do anything, but let's start to Darken, nothing. Multiply, pretty good. You're just going to kind of work your way through this list until you find something you like. 
Now because we're working with Color Modes for the next little bit, or Blending Color Modes, this clicking, clicking will drive you mad. So there is a shortcut, it's pretty advanced but it might be worth it, you might be going, "Man, this is going to kill me." So if that is you, what you need to do is, first you need to be on the 'Move Tool' for some reason, I'm not sure why. Then hold down the 'Shift' key on your keyboard and then tap the '+' key. That's the one up at the top right next to all your numbers, above all your keys. For some reason that's the shortcut, it's a weird one. You can see, by tapping that I'm just toggling all the way through. It's the same for a Mac and a PC. I'm just going to find the one that works, that's kind of cool, like--
I like that kind of a thick Color Burn. It's kind of this overexposed grainy kind of thing. That's always kind of worked for me. Now the rest of it is just picking different colors, and we're going to add some text like you saw at the beginning. You can skip on, otherwise follow me, and we'll do a little bit more. It's a Rectangle Tool again, I'm going to pick a different Fill Color. I'm going to go in here and pick, kind of a ready-- I want to say Fuchsia, I'm not even sure what to call this color. I should know, you're a designer, Dan. That works for me. 
Don't have that layer selected otherwise it changes that one. I'll leave that in there in case you make that same mistake. So I'm going to go to 'Edit', 'Undo'. 'Edit', it can't do anything. Go back to my 'Move Tool'. It was halfway through picking a color, with that little box up. Now I can go 'Edit', 'Step Backward'. I'll leave all that in there, it's good stuff. So instead of changing that color what we're going to do is, you can click on any of these other layers. It will work fine, or have nothing selected. See this kind of gray area down the bottom? It means I don't want any layers selected. 
Now if I go to my Rectangle Tool, and click up here, it's not going to change that layer. Back to my Fuschia. You're allowed to correct me if I'm wrong. Pinky red, nuclear red, anyway. So I've got my Rectangle Tool, I've got no Stroke, I'm just drawing that big box. Off the page and down to the floor line, just because it looks kind of cool. Now I'm going to use my shortcut, remember, on to the 'Move Tool'. Then hold down 'Shift', and tap '+', if you tap '-' it goes backwards. Even that, that's just cool like that. We're going to do Dual Tones in an upcoming video, and it's going to use a similar sort of effect. 
First thing I want to do is I want to drag this rectangle to be just behind the text here. So there's this kind of like, levelled interaction going. What's that one? Linear Burn. Looks kind of cool. Really depends on what you're looking for here. We're using Blending Modes now just for visual effects not anything super serious, but it's super easy to do, and quite fun. That's going to work for me. I'm using Multiply, this one down here is using Color Burn. Now just going to add some text. I'm going to grab my Type Tool. Now remember, from our Type Tool exercise, don't click inside this box because it will try and turn that box into a text box, that's not what I want to do. 
So 'Undo Typing', go away. 'Undo Typing'. 'Esc' key is the “I didn't mean it” key. Then you can go to 'Edit', 'Step Backward', and it should do that whole chunk undone. So when you are drawing out a text box, remember, the square box around the outside is good. If I try and do it inside this rectangle here, or along the side here I can get into trouble by linking the two together. So I'm just going to drag my text box, kind of out over here. I'm going to go to 'Type', and I'm going to-- before you go and fill with Lorem Ipsum you can pick a font size that's more appropriate. Font size, mine's at '10pt', and my Leading, let's set it to 'Auto'. So that when I go to 'Type', and say paste Lorem Ipsum, just placeholder text, it's not going to paste like giant text that we might have done in the last tutorial. 
So it's going to be my bit of text. I'll grab my 'Type Tool'. Again, you can skip on now. I'm just messing about, making it look cool. Mainly looking cool for the intro so that it's sexy when it makes you want to do this one. Really we just changed the Blending Mode on a colored box. I tricked you in here. Bring in the logo as well. Let's go to file 'Open', there's a logo in that same '10 Blending Modes'. 'Logo.ai'. I'm going to click 'OK'. Select all, 'copy'. In here, 'paste', 'Convert to Smart Object' because we're super serious about this Photoshop stuff. Shrinking it down, moving it to where I want it to be. Maybe a bit bigger. Hit 'return'. 
All right, that is going to be it. I am liking this rectangle less as a Color Burn. What you might notice is, that layer there is actually underneath all of this. I'm going to bring it to the top. It's not making much of a difference now but it might do when we change the Blending Mode of this green rectangle. I'm just going to click on 'Multiply', everyone uses Multiply. Actually I don't like Multiply now. Man, you can seriously skip on. I'm happy with that, settled on Linear Light. All right friends, that is how to use Blending Modes to do kind of color accents in Adobe Photoshop. See you in the next video.