General Blending Options

Ordinarily, layers higher in the Layers panel obscure those below them. Likewise, painting in Photoshop deposits color that overwrites what was there previously. However, there are ways to cause layers and brush strokes to blend with what’s below them.

Opacity

If we lower a layer’s Opacity, we can see through it. If the layer’s Opacity is 50%, it is literally half as visible, and the layer(s) below makes up the other half. The same is true for any tool that uses a brush metaphor (the Brush tool is the most obvious, but others are painterly too). Both layers and tools that use brushes have other settings that seem ...

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