This tutorial teaches proper blending of pictures into backgrounds. I've noticed that a lot people do not know the best way to do this and in fact there IS no best way, it depends on the picture and the background. Here I will discuss some various ways of picture blending.

1. No Blending
This type of blending is well... no blending at all. It is just a picture placed on top of the background. In this case I have desturated the picture and placed it under a color balance layer, which is on top of all of my layers as I want a uniform color.


2. Layer Mask
Using a layer mask, you can mask certain portions of an image from showing up, leaving some parts opaque and some less. To do this, look in your layers pallete. At the bottom there should be a box with a circle in it. Make sure the layer with your picture is selected, and click that button. This should add a little box next to the layer, click that:

Select your gradient tool and mess around until you are satisfied. The layer mask only responds to grayscale colors. White dictates no blockage, while black will mask that part of the image. Differing levels of greys will do different things, but the darker the grey, the less opaque that part of the image will be. In the above picture, the sides are black meaning the sides are what's being masked. Here is how it looks:


3. Lowered Opacity
By lowering the opacity of an image, we let some of the background show through it but still leave some of the image visible. Personally I don't like this method much because it usually results in sloppy looking blending. Here is how it looks like at 80% opacity:

At 60%:

At 40%:


4. Erasing
I use this method the most because it gives me the most control over the picture, however erasing can be substituted with a layer mask if you use a black paintbrush in the place of an eraser on the mask. First off I duplicate the picture layer and decide where I want it to be most visible. I decide on the face, so I erase the edges a bit of the first layer and the entire body except for the head in the second layer. I adjust opacities until I get what I want. Here is how it looks with just the first layer:

With just the second layer:

Here it is with both:


5. Luminoscity
Basically what you do here is set the picture's blend mode to Luminoscity and it's done. It's exactly the same in looks as no blending at all.


6. Erasing (Background)
I never use this anymore as I hate to destroy a good background that I made. First off I move the picture layer all the way to the bottom under my background layers. I then Ctrl+Click the picture layer to select it, contract by x amount of pixels (Dependson the size of the pic and how much blending you want) and then feather the selection by the same amount of pixels. Then, one by one, I hit delete on every single background layer. Here's how it looks like:


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and hopefully you will have learned something.
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