A Guide To Composite Modes in DaVinci Resolve

Series	Color Correcting with Composite Modes

An online refresher of how composite/blending modes work

This Insight is designed to refresh your knowledge on blending modes and discuss what they are, what they do, and how to utilise them as grading tools in the Colour Tab. The article below summarises the six blend mode categories and demonstrates a wide range of blending modes as a handy reference guide. The video Insight uses the Multiply, Soft Light and Screen blend modes to balance and stylise a shot inside DaVinci Resolve’s Colour Tab.

Photoshop introduced nineteen original blend modes in 1994, becoming a staple feature in most editing and colour-grading applications, including DaVinci Resolve. A blending mode is a powerful tool that allows you to combine two layers in many different ways. When using blend modes, there is a base layer, a blend layer and the final result. The base layer is the original image. The blend layer is the new material that is blended with the base layer. The final result is the combination of the two images. The following examples will feature a landscape image as the base layer and a 10-stop grayscale generator as the blend layer.

Six major categories of blend modes combine pixels to achieve different results:

• Normal
• Darken
• Lighten
• Contrast
• Inversion
• Component

Normal Blend Mode

This blending mode is the default composite mode. This blending mode does not blend pixels, it just reveals pixels from the layer beneath. For example, placing a 10-step generator above an image and lowering the generator’s opacity to 50% reveals the image underneath uniformly.

Normal

Darken Blend Modes

This blending category renders a darker result. There are five different blending modes in this category:

• Darken
• Multiply
• Colour Burn
• Linear Burn
• Darker Colour.

Darken Blend modes render a darker final result because the darker pixels on the blend layer will remain opaque, and the brighter pixels become transparent. In other words, anything on the blend layer that is white will turn invisible, and anything darker than white will have a darkening effect on the pixels below.

Multiply

Multiply is a popular blend mode from this list. Always results in a darker image. Any pixel multiplied with black, turns black. Any pixel multiplied by white is unchanged.

Darken

Darken and Darken Colour blend modes render an interesting effect, but one that I have never found a use for. Rather than blending pixels like Multiply, Darken and Darken Colour choose pixels from either the base or blend layer, which renders solid greys and blacks from the 10-step generator within the darker range.

Color Burn

Colour Burn and Linear Burn render a darker, higher contrast, and higher saturation result than Multiply. I think of these two blend modes as Multiply’s intense older siblings, who pack a real punch.

Lighten Category

This blending category will render a brighter result. There are five different blending modes in this category:

• Lighten (opposite of Darken)
• Screen (opposite of Multiply)
• Colour Dodge (opposite of Colour Burn)
• Linear Dodge (opposite of Linear Burn)
• Lighten Colour (opposite of Darker Colour).

Blend modes from this list render a brighter final result because the brighter pixels on the blend layer will remain opaque, and the darker pixels will become transparent. In other words, anything on the blend layer that is black will turn invisible and anything that is lighter than black will have a brightening effect on the pixels below. Screen is a popular blending mode from this list, and it is commonly used to composite graphic or visual effects elements with a black background when no alpha channel is present.

Screen

Lighten and Lighten Colour

These render an interesting effect, just like Darken and Darken Colour. Rather than blending pixels like Screen, Lighten and Lighten Colour blending modes choose pixels from either the base or blend layer, which renders solid greys and whites from the 10-step generator within the brighter range.

Colour Dodge and Linear Dodge 

Both render a brighter result than Screen. Like the Darken categories, I think of Colour Dodge and Linear Dodge as Screen’s intense older siblings!

Linear Dodge

Contrast Category

This blending category will render a higher contrast result. There are seven different blending modes in this category:

• Overlay
• Soft Light
• Hard Light
• Vivid Light
• Linear Light
• Pin Light
• Hard Mix.

Blend modes from this list render a higher contrast result because pixels darker than 50% grey apply a darkening blend mode, whereas pixels brighter than 50% grey apply a brightening blending mode. 50% grey turns transparent, except the hard mix blending mode.

Overlay

Overlay is a popular blend mode combining multiply and screen at half strength. Values lighter than middle grey will apply the Screen blending mode at half strength, while values darker than 50% will apply Multiply at half strength. Values at 50% grey will appear transparent.

Soft Light

This subtle variant of the Overlay blend mode operates similarly to Overlay – at a reduced strength.

Hard Light 

Combines Multiply and Screen blending modes using brightness values from the blend layer to make its calculations. Black and white in the blend layer appear as black and white in the final result.

Vivid Light 

This Composite Mode can be considered an extreme version of Overlay, heavily darkening and brightening the image and should be used cautiously.

Linear Light 

Linear Light is a combination of Linear Dodge and Linear Burn to darken and brighten the image heavily and should again be used cautiously.

Pin Light 

This composite mode is a combination of Darken and Lighten blend modes. It chooses pixels from either the base or the blend layer, which renders solid greys and blacks for values darker than 50% grey and renders solid greys and whites for values brighter than 50% grey.

Hard Mix 

Hard Mix adds the blended image’s red, green, and blue channel values to the base image’s RGB values. If the resulting sum for a channel is 255 or greater, it receives a value of 255; if less than 255, a value of 0. Therefore, all blended pixels have red, green, and blue channel values of either 0 or 255. This changes all pixels to primary additive colours (red, green, or blue), white, or black. (Hard Mix description taken directly from https://helpx.adobe.com/nz/photoshop/using/blending-modes.html)

Inversion Category

This blending category blends images based on the difference between the two images and can provide various interesting results. This category has four different blending modes:

• Difference
• Exclusion
• Subtract
• Divide.

Difference 

Difference compares the base and blend images and subtracts the greater colour value. This causes bright values to invert the final result, whereas darker values create practically no change. If you Difference an image against itself, the result is a pure black screen

This functionality is useful in the online suite, specifically when conforming a sequence. Difference an offline reference file against the full-quality timeline should result in a black image. Any scale, transform, or editorial differences will become clear, as differences will lighten the result.

Exclusion

This is a very similar blend mode to Difference, with a critical difference. Bright values invert, and darker values do very little, like Difference, but using Exclusion will render 50% grey as 50% grey.

Subtract 

As the name suggests, Subtract subtracts pixel values from the base layer, rendering a darker final result when blending brighter pixels.

Divide 

Dividing the blend layer from the base layer creates an opposite result compared to the Subtract composite mode. It renders a brighter final result when blending darker pixels.

Component Category

This blending category blends commonly used parameters to provide the final result. This category has four different blending modes:

• Hue
• Saturation
• Colour
• Luminosity

Hue preserves the base layer’s luminance and saturation and blends the blend layer’s hue across to the final result. Hue is the only parameter that is changed.

Saturation 

Preserve the base layer’s hue and luminance and blend the blend layer’s saturation to the final result. Saturation is the only parameter that is changed. If we had applied the 10-step grayscale generator, the absence of saturation would have rendered a grayscale image (as in the example below where the pure white and black bars return a desaturated image).

Color 

The Color composite mode preserves the base layer’s luminosity and blends the blend layer’s hue and saturation across to the final result. As per the Saturation blend mode, if we had applied the 10-step grayscale generator, it would have rendered a grayscale image.

Luminosity 

Preserve the base layer’s hue and saturation and blend the blend layer’s luminosity across to the final result.

Key takeaways from this Insight

By the end of this Insight, you should understand how to:

• Confidently interpret different blending modes and use them to explore different blending techniques.
• Change a Serial Node’s composite mode to create adjustments based on the image source
• Decrease exposure using the blend mode: Multiply
• Increase contrast using the blend mode: Soft Light
• Add a soft glow using the blend mode: Screen

External Links

• Adobe Helpx: Photoshop blending modes explained

Related Mixing Light Insights

• How To Color Correct With Blending Modes : The Overlay Mode – You can use the Overlay blending mode to add grain and get great colour and contrast pop, with the click of a button. Watch me put it to use.
• Color Correcting With Blending Modes : Using the Add & Screen Modes – In Part 2 of this series you learn how to use the Add and Screen blending modes to create glows, texture or light leaks to your moving images.
• Neo Noir B&W – Using Hardlight Blending Mode – Creating a feature film neo noir look can be tough. Dan shares his look using hardlight blending modes instead of his beloved curves.

Questions or Comments? Leave a comment!

How do you use Composite Modes in Davinci Resolve? Let us know! Mixing Light is all about community discussions, and we’re curious if you found this helpful, if you have something to add, or if you need more questions answered.

– Luke

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