Blend Mode Power Tip

Once you understand layer blend modes, you wind up using them all the time. Chances are by now you know which individual modes you want to use (such as Overlay, Multiply, Soft Light, Hard Light, Screen) and which ones you’ll probably never use (such as Dissolve). If you know which ones you want to use, you can use a keyboard shortcut to jump right to the blend mode you want. For example, to jump to the Overlay mode for a layer, press Option-Shift (PC: Alt-Shift) and the first letter of the mode you want, in this case, the letter O (making the shortcut Option-Shift-O [PC: Alt-Shift-O]). For Screen mode, you’d press Option-Shift-S (PC: Alt-Shift-S), and so on. (Note: If you have a tool selected that has a blend mode in its Options Bar, such as the Brush tool [B], the keyboard shortcut will change that tool’s blend mode instead of the layer blend mode.)