Layer Blend Studio Guide

Overview

Layer Blend Studio lets you composite two images together with precise control over blending, opacity, and selective erasure. The image from your main editor becomes the top layer, and you load an underlayer beneath it. The underlayer automatically scales to match your image dimensions.

Basic Controls

Layer Opacity

• Top Layer Opacity: Control the visibility of your main image (0-100%)
• Underlayer Opacity: Control the visibility of the bottom layer (0-100%)

Blend Modes

Nine blend modes determine how the layers interact:

• Normal: Standard overlay (default)
• Multiply: Darkens - combines the darkest values from both layers
• Screen: Lightens - combines the lightest values
• Overlay: Contrast enhancement
• Soft Light: Gentle contrast boost
• Dodge: Brightens selectively
• Burn: Darkens selectively
• Darken: Shows only darker pixels
• Lighten: Shows only lighter pixels

Underlayer Mode

• Positive: Normal colors (default)
• Negative: Inverts the underlayer colors

Try Negative mode with Screen blend mode to turn blacks into whites in your composite.

Selective Erasing

The brush tool lets you selectively reveal one layer through the other:

Eraser Mode

• Top Layer: Erases the top layer to reveal the underlayer (default)
• Underlayer: Erases the underlayer to reveal the pure top layer

Brush Controls

• Brush Size: 1-100 pixels
• Erasure Strength: 1-100% (how much to erase with each stroke)
• Brush Feathering: 0-50 pixels (soft edge fade)

Undo: 15 levels of undo for brush strokes Reset Canvas: Clears all erasure and starts over View Original: Hold down to see the unblended top layer

Creating Custom Frames

For unlimited framing possibilities, combine Simple Frames with Layer Blend Studio:

1. First, use Simple Frames spoke to add a Clear frame (transparent border)
   • Choose either Clear Outside (border around image) or Clear Inside (mat within image)
2. Return that image to the main editor
3. Send it to Layer Blend Studio
4. Load any texture, color, or pattern as your underlayer
5. The underlayer will show through the transparent frame area

This technique lets you create endless frame variations from any image - textures, gradients, photos, patterns, or solid colors.

Workflow Tips

1. Load your underlayer image first
2. Experiment with blend modes and opacity sliders
3. Use the brush to selectively erase areas, revealing your preferred layer
4. Try different combinations - Multiply for rich darks, Screen for luminous effects
5. The Negative underlayer option opens up inverse color possibilities

Finding Underlayer Images

Look for textures, frames, and borders on:

• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Unsplash

Consider creating a "blender files" folder to save your favorite textures and frames.

Finishing

Click Return to Main Editor to send your blended image back to the hub editor.