Blending Mode Inside Composition

I have CS4 AE. I imported a layered PSD file which brought in all my layers, in addition to automatically making a composition out of all the layer groups. So far so good. However, why is my multiply blend mode on one of the many layers not honored when inside of these group layer compositions? When I open up the composition itself with all the individual layers, the multiply blend mode is indeed assigned.
If I put into the timeline just the individual layer with the multiply, it works. It doesn't when inside of those automatic group layer comps.
Can anyone shed some light?
Thanks!

>However, why is my multiply blend mode on one of the many layers not
>honored when inside of these group layer compositions?
Because AE is not Photoshop! Just like Andrew said, you need to tell AE to pass through blending modes. The principle is simply reversed - in AE you turn this off when you tweak the group blend properties, in AE you need to explicitly turn it on.
Mylenium

Similar Messages

Alpha, blending modes and compositions

Hello, I am an animator and have a problem with blending modes in a composition. Hopefully someone can help me.
I use After Effects CS5 on Mac OS.
Please take a look at this screenshot:
I have several layers in a composition (trees and shadows). The trees are set to normal and the shadows are set to multiply. Outside of this composition there are other elements on layers.
The problem is that I get this edge between shadows and trees where the multiply does not apply. I need it to be applyed to the "outside" layer too.
Trying to look my problem up on the internet I found out that the blending mode "alpha add" could solve my problem but I need multiply and alpha add, if that makes sense.
Can I somehow get rid of this edge?

Multiply is being applied to all pixels, it's just that the pixels around the edge are not the same color. You can use Matte tools to refine or choke the edges. (Effect>Matte>Matte Choker) If you very carefully look at the pixel values on the edges of your illustration while viewing the info palette you'll see that you have some semi transparent pixels on the edges. That is where you problem comes from. Alpha add will help in matching antialiased edges but it will not help in your situation.

Blend mode settings

hello photoshopers.
id like to know if possible from what the blend modes are composited by,i tend to like mostly the overlay or soft ligh blend mode,is the a seeting for this?the reason i as for this is that if i tend to lower the opacity i wont get the exact result lik ethe overlay or soflight blend offers.and the major reason im trying to figyre out the settings is that when ever i have a layer with a blend mode,when i merge it with some other layer,i loose the blend,it goes back to normal,so im thinking
that if i know where ot see the blend mode settings maybe i dont use the blend modes and use the light,contrast,colors etc etc etc to get a blend mode Emulation
thank you.

hello k-pxl
thank you for the information.i did try what you suggested.but to tell you the truth it didnt work for the particular technique im after,cos
there is a purpose why im trying to achieve this.Thats exaclty whats frustrating me,the fact that i use the blending modes on 2 layers
to get the result im after devastates me when i merge them and go back on 0 again,i use this technique to achieve great shines and shades
something lowering the opacity wont do on its own,so my A-Z question is how to find a way to merge 2 layers that have a blend mode and ps not
to combines them into a new layer and get rid of the blend.
i hope i find an answer to my solution.

Import After Effects composition - blending modes will not transfer to Premiere

I have a lower thirds composition I want to import from After Effects CC into Premiere Pro CC. While I have no problem importing the composition, I do have a problem with Premiere Pro displaying properly the blending modes I set in AE.
I've tried every blending mode... (I read somewhere Premiere Pro is only compatible with some AE blending modes.)
What appears in Premiere is a completely flat composition.
Is it possible to import an After Effects composition, including blending modes? Any suggestions?
Blending Mode effect shown below, Soft Light. (After Effects first, Premiere Pro second.)

@ Jim Simon
Here's a sample of the lower-third in various stages. Each image is only a few frames of eachother (to show it's animated). As you can see in the final image (in Premiere), it's as tho the blend mode imports – you can see the light gray uglyness – but doens't blend.
After Effects composition, without blending mode.
After Effects compostion with blending mode, Soft Light.
Premiere Pro

Has anyone ever encountered layer blend modes behaving strangely?

I use photoshop quite a bit for retouching and photo compositing. Tonight I encountered a strange problem. I was trying to create a vintage look on a photo and had a number of adjustment layers including a curves, levels, color fill and there were also a few texture/noise layers all set to varying opacities. Near the top of all this I had a vignette layer that was black around the edges and white in the center set to blend mode of multiply. Well, when I was clicking on and off I realize that that vignette layer was definitely lightening the center part of the overall image quite a bit (the part that is white on the vignette layer), almost like a screen. So I flipped the vignette layer through different opacity modes and saw that there was no change in its behavior, every mode was screening the white, even darker color and multiply. I thought maybe it was interacting in a weird way with one of the other layers so I turned all the others off except the back ground-- still no change. Then I dropped the layer down one at time until it was below the background. When I started to move it up again, it was behaving normally for a moment until I moved it up a couple levels in the stacking order and then it went back to the screen behavior. Anyway I shuffled it around a bit but there was no consitency to when it would display the correct opacity and when it wouldn't, so it did not seem to be an interaction with any specific layer. I don't know, but I can't really think of any case where white set to multiply should produce a lighter result even if it were interacting with another opacity. In any case it does seem to me that there is something going on with the overall computation of opacities. I tried creating a new black and white layer and it was also doing the same thing, behaving strange and not displaying the correct opacity.
I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. I'm going to shut off the computer and hope this goes away when I reboot, but if it does not, does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm not a regular visitor to this forum, but I thought I'd put it out there in case anyone else has experienced anything like this. I've only got 5 gigs of ram on this computer and I've been working away for a while... maybe photoshop just couldn't keep up(?) I'm using Photoshop CS5, RGB Adobe 1998 colorspace. I've never had anything like this happen in the last 11 years I've been using photoshop. Hmmm.... hope I don't have to reinstall or call support or worse. fingers crossed.

Nevermind. It is still having the problem. I have to think that this file is just corrupt somehow because I just opened another file and can't seem to cause the same problem. Basically, I can fill a layer with white, put it to a blend mode of multiply or darker color and it will block out everything of the image below, ie totally opaque. The opaqueness varies depending on the if there are other layers also on blend modes, but it does not seem to correspond to normal blend mode interaction. If I put it right on top of a regular layer with an image on it, it totally blocks it out on a blend mode of multiply... weird. I am going to scrap this file and see if the problem recurs in other files. My 2006 Mac Pro is getting some years on it and has been running pretty slow. I'm not a hardware expert but I've done everything I know how to do to maintain it. Was thinking of upping the ram to see if I can hold out a bit longer before I upgrade the computer. Wouldn't surprise me if this problem is related to the computer.

Layer group blending modes

There was some discussion about defaulting layer groups blending mode being normal by default instead of pass through. While I do use a lot of smart objects as "normal" containers (albeit mostly to filter rather than blend), I'm interested in techniques which would make normal a more useful default. Any thoughts?

OK... Here's my 2 cents. I use layer sets (layer groups) often in color correction work. Some times to get color where you want it, you may need to use 2 or 3 adjustment layers. For instance a Hue Saturation layer and a Curve layer. rather tan masking both of them, I put them into a layer set, and make one mask at the set level. This is helpful if later you need to extend the correction to include additional areas... all you need to do is modify one mask. In this situation, the layer set has to be set to pass through in order to affect pixels below it.
Now, lets say I grabbed a head from a different image, to add a person to the image I started with. If the head requires brightening and color adjustments to make it match the existing image, I find it a little neater to place the head layer in a layer set, then all the adjustment layers can go inside the set with it. But I need the blend mode of this set to be normal, so that the effects of the adjustment layers within it do not continue past the set level. Make sense?
I realize that you can link the adjustments to the layer you intend to affect, but I find the method I described to just be a little neater as far as layer management. AND if I then need to paint in hair for the head layer and paint in some eye enhancements, I can do each on its own layer inside the set. Sometimes I'll make the blend mode of the layer set for the head (just to stick with the same example) normal then put all my color adjustment layers inside a sub set with a blend mode of pass through. Then I can mask the CC layer set to only CC the eyes let's say, and I can mask the head layer set separately to blend it into the scene.
I hope all that helps. :^)

Blending modes bug

I want to report a bug in the program Premiere Pro CC 2014. it first appeared in version CC.
blending modes bug
Compound
Arithmetic
Composite
each time one and the same
Describe a situation in which there is this bug
I apply a preset, any of these effects, or similar so that the clip is mixed with himself blending mode screen. so I very gently increases the brightness of the image.
and sometimes there is a problem. clip is not blended with himself simultaneously. but with some time offset. it turns out that the image becomes lighter, but doubles, blended two different frame.
strict laws, I did not reveal.
but most often the bug occurs when the cut clip already applied effect. or when the effect is applied to the clips that are not on the first track. or when the effect is applied to multiple clips at once.
I found some solution, but it is not very convenient.
if you go to the drop down list with the names of the tracks and re-select the same track, the bug disappears.
for example, we had chosen the "video 1", we once again choose "Video 1" and everything is current, as it should be.
sorry for my english, I am Ukrainian.
and sorry for wedding too)))

Here is another example. guys who have still a problem?

Blending Modes ("vivid light") in After Effects?

I discovered that in After Effects CS6 (Win7) some blending modes seem to not work as expected.
I have a bitmap with transparencies above another bitmap and want to blend it with "vivid light" - but the result is the same as if i had no blending mode selected at all. The same is for "hard light", "linear light" or "hard mix".
Other blending modes like "multiply", "soft light" and "overlay" work just fine.
Does anyone have an idea what is wrong with my After Effects?

I'm sorry for not being as specific as requested in the faq. I thought it might be more helpful to reduce the problem description to the most relevant facts first, and see if it can be solved in a simple way.
My former experiences with providing all existing information in the first post is usually met with no answers at all, because people think: WOAH! Too much information. ;-)
Okay, I designed my video design in Photoshop CS6 first. This is how the design was supposed to look like - as it was composed in Photoshop.
There are two layers:
1. a pattern of semi-transparent patches on top and
2. a blue gradient background
the pattern (1) is composited with blending mode "vivid light" on the background (2).
After I exported both layers as pngs (24bit alpha) and imported them in After Effects and used the same settings as in photoshop, I got the following:
As you can see, I used "vivid light" as blending mode, but it looks exactly as if blending mode "normal" was used.
The render quality is set to final quality.
The same happens with blending modes "hard light", "linear light" or "hard mix" (i guess, you don't need screenshots, because they all look the same)
But other blending modes like "multiply", "soft light" and "overlay" work fine (in this case I used "overlay"):
So, the problem is: Why do some blending modes not work, while others work?
BTW: I also tried to import the PSD directly into After Effects with all layers retained, in case something was wrong with the pngs, that I exported - but the imported PSD produced exactly the same error. So, no difference there.
Now for all the questions from the faq. - i think most of them will not help to identify the issue, but i will try and answer all of them:
What version of After Effects? Include the minor version number (e.g., After Effects CS5.5 with the 10.5.1 update).
CS6 (11.0.2)
Have you installed the recent updates? (If not, you should. They fix a lot of problems.)
yes, I have
What operating system? This should include specific minor version numbers, like "Mac OSX v10.6.8"---not just "Mac".
Windows 7, 64bit latest version, all updates installed
What kind(s) of source footage? When telling about your source footage, tell us about the codecs, not just the container types. For example, "H.264 in a .mov container", not just "QuickTime".
any footage. it's regardless of what footage I use. in this special case it was 2 pngs (24bit alpha) - see above.
If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)?
there is no error message
What were you doing when the problem occurred?
see above
Has this ever worked before? If this worked before by doesn't work now, what has changed on your computer in the intervening time?
it's the first time I tried
What other software are you running?
mainly software like Google Chrome or Microsoft Office - I'm not sure they have anything to do with the problem
Do you have any third-party effects or codecs installed?
I have Magic bullet looks installed, but since I don't use it in this project, I don't think it's got anything to do with the problem
Tell us about your computer hardware. Include CPU type and number of processor cores, amount of RAM installed, GPU, number of disk drives, and how any external drives are connected.
Intel something, 6 cores, 12GB RAM, and NVIDIA GTX 590 graphics card, (driver 306.97)
Do you have any third-party I/O hardware (e.g., AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, MOTU)?
no
Are you using OpenGL features in After Effects?
I don't know.. I thought OpenGL in CS6 is all automatically and can not be turned off or on?
but i switched quality to "final render".
Does the problem only happen with your final output, RAM preview, or both?
everywhere
Are you using Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing?
yes. but if I turn it off, nothings changes
What is the exact sequence of steps that you are taking?
see above
hope this helps

Blending modes in Keynote

Is there anyway to use blending modes (Specifically screen) in Keynote?
Or otherwise is there some way I can xport the image from another program which keeps it's screen nature?

In Photoshop, instead of putting the lens flare on a black background, put it on a transparent background so that you have the frame, the lens flare, and inside the frame is a transparent grey-and-white checkerboard pattern (Select the black background and hit the Delete key. You should get the checkerboard pattern where your background was.) And instead of exporting the frame as a JPEG file, export it as a PNG file so that you can retain the transparency inside the frame. Now next time, all you need to do is put the frame above the image in Keynote.

New, Z-Buffer related blending mode

My suggestion is linked to Photoshop usage in still-image 3D composition. Specifically, it is about new layer blending mode what makes usage of depth channel (Z-buffer) information provided by rendering software.
Very often I would like to be capable of color correction of a single particular object of a 3D rendering. Though it is possible to make appropriate color correction in 3D package - this is nasty as that require additional rendering of the complete scene what is normally pretty time consuming.
Ideally, I would like to do such minor color corrections is a compositing software - in case of stills - in Adobe Photoshop.
But... how to do this?
I tried to make two render passes:
A) rendering the scene having one particular object set invisible to camera (but visible to GIobal Illumination solution)
B) rendering the scene having all objects but this one set invisible to camera (but visible to GIobal Illumination solution)
Then - these two images can be composited in Photoshop as separate layers.
That could work but it fails in case given object intersects with other in 3D space.
Normaly, 3D renderer only renders these object's parts what are visible to 3D camera, so these parts what are obscured by other object are not renedered. But if I render given object "separately" - then I have all its visible parts being rendered - even those what are normally invisible as obscured by intersecting object. And in his case alpha channel provides unsufficient information to perform appropriate selection to remove unneeded parts of the image.
Normally, this information if provided with depth channel: the Z-buffer what can be rendered in an extra pass. This is a grayscale image where shades of gray provide information about given pixel's distance to camera. But unfortunately, I can't see any use of it in Photoshop composition.
Ideally, some specialized "layer blending mode" should be implemented in Photoshop. It could work in the following manner:
Presuming there are two Photoshop layers:
- bottom layer containing (A) render image masked with its Z-buffer channel
- top layer containing (B) render image masked with its Z-buffer channel
Using new blending mode, only these pixels would be revealed what are actually "closer" based on appropriate Z-buffer data comparison between (A) and (B).
Is this suggestion worth implementation?
IMHO that would significantly faciliated 3D composition in Photoshop.

Here is a simple example of how a method is documented. (This is a stupid method, but hopefully you get the idea.)
* Prints a String. The length of the String is returned.
* @param toPrint the String to be printed
* @return   the length of the String
* @throws NullPointerException if the String is null
public int printAString(String toPrint) {
   if (toPrint == null)
      throw new NullPointerException("Null string");
   System.out.println(toPrint);
   return toPrint.length();

Why isn't it letting me apply blending modes to 3D objects?

Hello, I have had a problem with After Effects, it is not letting me use blending modes on 3D layers? Any Help? Here is the video I am following After Effects Tutorial - Create 3D Text onto live action Footage HD - YouTube

Blending modes are not one of the features that you can use with the ray-traced 3D renderer.
The list of limitations of the ray-traced 3D renderer appears when you first switch a composition to use the ray-traced 3D renderer.
Details:
After Effects Help | Extruding text and shape layers

BUG: Channel-based blend modes in FW CS5 & CS6

I've observed problems with some of the blend modes in Fireworks CS5 and CS6. Several are definitely broken—most likely a by-product of changes introduced in CS5, which attempted to match some of Photoshop's blend mode behaviors (for Hue, Saturation, Color and Luminosity).
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/bbowman_fwcs5.html
The broken blend modes are the channel-based blend modes: Red, Green, and Blue. These have no counterpart in Photoshop, and yet no longer function properly.
To illustrate the problem, I've created a simple test graphic: three white squares, three black squares, three bitmaps, and three colored squares (red, green, and blue).
Now I'll add a black background to the canvas and apply a different channel-based blend mode—Red, Green, and Blue—to each object in its respective group. Here's the correct result, in Fireworks 8:
As you can see, each object appears to be the same color as its applied blend mode. A white rectangle with a Red blend mode becomes red, with a Green blend mode becomes green, and with a Blue blend mode becomes blue.
The way it works is this: The composite image adopts the selected channel of the object and combines it with the remaining channels of the canvas (or objects) below. For example, consider the white rectangle with a Red blend mode. The rectangle's Red channel (R:255) should be combined with the remaining channels of the canvas below (G:0,B:0) to create a composite with the appearance of red (R:255,G:0,B:0).
Now here's the same graphic as it appears in both Fireworks CS5 and CS6:
As you can see, there's no sense to this result. The Red blend mode produces Green, the Green blend mode produces Red, and the Blue blend mode produces invisibility. I simply cannot explain the outcome. These blend modes have been rendered useless and unintelligible in CS5 and CS6.
The reason for my concern here is that, just over a year ago, I wrote a series of command scripts based on these blend modes as they existed Fireworks 8. Without these blend modes, my scripts cannot function.
Assuming there are updates forthcoming for Fireworks CS6, I'm hoping there's a chance that this might still be fixed (if not for CS5, as well). Here's the bug report I've submitted regarding this issue:
Product name: Fireworks
Product Version: 11.1.0.205 (CS5.1)/12.0.0.236 (CS6)
Product Language: English
Your operating system: OS 10.6.8
******BUG******
Concise problem statement: Channel-based blend modes (Red, Green, and Blue) are broken in Fireworks CS6 and CS5.
Steps to reproduce bug:
1. Set canvas to black.
2. Draw 3 white rectangles of any size.
3. Set blend mode of 1st rectangle to Red, 2nd rectangle to Green, 3rd rectangle to Blue.
Results: 1st rectangle appears Green (instead of Red). 2nd rectangle appears Red (instead of Green). 3rd rectangle becomes invisible (instead of Blue).
Expected results: Each rectangle should appear to be the same color as its applied blend mode, as the composite adopts the selected channel of the object and combines it with the remaining channels of the canvas (or objects) below.
In the preceding example, the black canvas contains no channel information (R:0,G:0,B:0) while the white rectangles contain information in all 3 channels (R:255,G:255,B:255). When a Red blend mode is applied to a white rectangle, the object's Red channel (R:255) should be combined with the remaining channels of the canvas below (G:0,B:0) to create a composite with the appearance of red (R:255,G:0,B:0).
Most likely, this bug was introduced in CS5, which included modifications to Hue, Saturation, Color and Luminosity blend modes (to match Photoshop). For comparison, proper RGB blend mode behavior was observed in Fireworks 8.
For more information about this bug, please see the following post: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1209542

I haven't noticed changes in the way the blend modes work.
It's possible you have a specific problem on your system, or you have an image with a color space that uses a different gamma than you're used to working in. In the latter case, the math could be the same but if the representation of the colors is changed (which is what the color profile defines) you could get a radically different looking result.
Maybe it would be useful to post some screen grabs, and ideally it would be great if you could post a copy of a PSD file that demonstrates the problem (i.e., looks different when opened in an older version of Photoshop than in Photoshop CS6).
EDIT: Looks like I was too late in answering; I was distracted after typing and before posting.
-Noel

Color Dodge Blend mode issue in CS4

Alright I'm running CS4 and I'm having an issue using the color dodge blend mode for my brushes. What im trying to do is to create a light effect which I've done this before and I've also run into this problem before and I've solved it but I just cant remember how. I have a dark gradient on my background and i created a new blank layer for my brush, i set the brush layer blend mode to Color Dodge and use a white brush so it will pick up on the gradient. The issue I'm having is it's just painting over the gradient as if nothing is there and it only starts picking up on the background on a ring that I uncover when I go over it with a brush I'll try and provide an image. the white is suppose to turn bright red when it goes over the colored part of the gradient but it only changes its color near this ring on the gradient that I didn't add in. . . it's a weird explanation and I'm sorry cant explain it better but I hope someone knows or can figure out what I'm talking about or experiencing. your help is appreciated

I tried what you said and overlay wont work because it's too dark. I don't know if it was something wrong with my brushes or something else.I opened an old PSD that i had done this same thing with and the color dodge was working on that but whenever i created a new one it would act strange like the image above. then i tried again later and for some reason it started to work. The only thing i did differently was reset my brushes and i created a group and changed the group's blend mode to Color Dodge then put in a blank layer inside the group folder with a normal blend mode and it worked for some reason. I still don't know exactly what i did but oh well it's working now. Thanks for your help. This is what i was trying to do so now you can see how it wasn't working above.

Combine by Blend Mode?

I have a tedious production task I'd love help automating.
I receive layouts with mutliple layers of product shots (with transparency) in Normal blend mode. Most of those layers also have separate shadow layers in Multiply blend mode. (Sometimes these layers have masks, othertimes not.) Depending on how the file was built, product layers might be in proximity of their shadow layers, or they may not, making organization and contraction challenging.
(In case it matters, sometimes all layers (products and shadows) are housed inside a single group, sometimes there are no groups at all.)
Ultimately, I'd like to merge all the Product layers into one Normal mode layer, and all the Shadow layers into one Multiply mode layer (with masks applied), with the two layers linked to each other.
Can layers be identified and merged according to blend modes?

This might work.
But this disregards possible masks on groups and just moves the Multiply artLayers into one group and all others into another.
// move all artlayers set to multiply and all other artlayers into two layersets and then merge those;
// 2011; use it at your own risk;
#target photoshop;
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
var artLayers = collectLayers(myDocument);
var multiplyGroup = myDocument.layerSets.add();
multiplyGroup.name = "multiply";
multiplyGroup.blendMode = BlendMode.MULTIPLY;
var normalGroup = myDocument.layerSets.add();
normalGroup.name = "normal";
for (var m = 0; m < artLayers.length; m++) {
     var thisLayer = artLayers[m];
     if (thisLayer.blendMode == BlendMode.MULTIPLY) {
          thisLayer.move(multiplyGroup, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING)
     else {
          thisLayer.move(normalGroup, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING)
normalGroup.merge();
multiplyGroup.merge();
////// function collect all layers //////
function collectLayers (theParent) {
     if (!allLayers) {
          var allLayers = new Array}
     else {};
     for (var m = theParent.layers.length - 1; m >= 0;m--) {
          var theLayer = theParent.layers[m];
// apply the function to layersets;
          if (theLayer.typename == "ArtLayer") {
// exclude background layer;
               if (theLayer.isBackgroundLayer == false) {
                    allLayers.push(theLayer)
          else {
               allLayers = allLayers.concat(collectLayers(theLayer))
// this line includes the layer groups;
//               allLayers.push(theLayer);
     return allLayers

Layer blend mode doesn't show in export

Hi,
I am trying to export a composition from After Effects CC, I am using a Multiply blending mode in most of my layers to give it a better look.
When previewing in after effects it looks as I want it too look but when I add to AME and export it to youtube and vimeo the Multiply blending mode does not work and it shows the composition as if all the layers had NORMAL blending mode.
How can I fix this?
Thanks a lot!

Render a normal Image sequence or Quicktime clip directly from AE and convert it in AME, which would be smarter, anyway.
Mylenium

Blending Mode Inside Composition

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