The Mathematics of Blend Modes

Darken, Lighten, Soft Light - every program has them but do you really know what they all do? We explore the mathematics of blend modes found in After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve and others using 3d visualization to try to gain some insight into what all these modes do.

If you would like to study the graphics further they are available in our course supplemental:

[SamMasghati]

I need someone like John to explain my whole life to me. Simplifying complex things

[BlackDidThis]

The amount of work demanded in creating so such a video paints pretty much all other videos explaining the same subject as an insult to this one.
Thank you good sir for the amount of thought and effort gone into this rather dige4stable explanation of the blending modes.
It is very much appreciated!

[StefanoBorini]

give this man an Oscar in teaching. if it doesn't exist, make one and give it to him.

[allcaps]

The 3d graph of Base-Blend and Luma made it easier to understand visually. No other channel explained it this way.👍👍

[RoySATX]

I've been making computer illustrations and graphics for 30 years, thereabouts, and this is by far the best video on blend modes. Some have more math, others show more examples, but this one has just enough of both, and are of good quality, combined with a clear description delivered at just the right speed/cadence. Excellent! All the information, given without wasting time or insulting intelligence!

[TehBurek]

As a teacher of computer graphics, I whole-heartedly approve this video, again. Very well done, great explanations, great examples and visualisations, just all around excellent, as we've all come to expect by now. Great stuff, John!

[EricRosenwaldPhotography]

Very few educators know how to blend teaching art and science at this level. Thank you for dedicating so much time to this!

[saikatchattopadhyay]

Believe me or not. I have been searching just this, just only this for last 2 months. It's like a gem for me. thank you Sir

[TonyTheYouTuba]

This is great. Nuke gives the maths formulas in the tooltip but doesn’t mean a lot on its own. I’ll need to come back to this to fully digest, but I think it’s the only attempt I’ve seen to properly break this information down and make it accessible. Amazing work, thank you

[ChristianBehnke]

Fantastic video explaining things in both a simple way, but also diving into the math behind it, and paired with some fantastic samples. Thanks!

[Hashasino]

Thanks for creating this extensive deep dive into the functioning of Adobe Blend Mode! 🙏 ♥

[BillZebubproductions]

Such a great teacher - making complex concepts understandable.

[sazarod]

Nice! Really informative. Been using those blend modes for years without knowing what the heck they were actually doing. Thanks for this!

[esotericVideos]

So much more amazing effort goes into videos on this channel it's lame that the yt algorithm seems to be recommending this channel less that it did a couple years ago. This channel deserves so much more attention and support.

[jaimegmh]

Thanks for this video. Almost 20 years using Adobe Software and never seen such a deep yet useful explanation of the math behind these.

[mastadodo]

Wow, this is such an amazing video. The graphical representation of everything couldn't be better. This would have so many more views if more people cared how everything works under the hood. Thank you very much!

[Mongelt]

Do you know, how awesome you are? That's like 10 years of torture by randomly clicking blend modes taken away in 30 minutes. Thanks man!

[edwnx]

thank you for this. most videos on blend modes oversimplify it. they don't truly explain what's going on.

[lsj]

Formula correction (T=18:42) Pin Light for b>0.5 should be max(a, 2(b-0.5)) instead of max(a, 2b) -- otherwise it would just be solid white on the b>0.5 side.

[OutwardFilmNetwork]

What a great video. Great use of visuals and finally a video that makes a user friendly introduction to the blend modes. Thanks for sharing.