PhotoPlus X2 User Guide - Serif

Layers and Masks 143
selector. In the example above, the grey tones of value less than 70 are not included
in the blend. This means that the colour of the underlying layers pixels is used
instead (as there is no blending taking place).
To apply a blend range:
1. Open an image that possesses more than one layer.
2. Go to the Layers tab. Decide which two layers you want to apply a blend range
between.
3. Select the upper layer, right-click and choose Properties....
4. In the Blend Ranges box, specify a channel to work on in the drop-down
menu – choose Grey, Red, Green or Blue.
5. On the This Layer range selector, drag either the lower or upper sliders right
or left, respectively, to limit the blend range. You can drag both sliders to
reduce both the upper and lower ranges if you wish.
6. Do the same for the Underlying Layer.
7. Click OK to apply the blend range.
With the Alt key, smoothing is possible by splitting the triangular sliders into two
and moving one half to a new position on the range selector. The greater the
difference in values, the greater the smoothing applied.
Adjusting opacity/transparency
Opacity and transparency describe essentially the same thing (like "half full" and
"half empty"). They both describe the degree to which a particular pixel's colour
contributes to the overall colour at that point in the image. (Pixels are the "dots of
paint" that comprise a bitmap image in PhotoPlus.)
Varying opacity is rather like lighting a gauze backdrop in a theatre: depending on
how light falls on it, it can be rendered either visible or invisible, or in between.
Fully opaque pixels contribute their full colour value to the image. Fully
transparent pixels are invisible: they contribute nothing to the image. In-between
pixels are called semi-transparent. You'll primarily encounter opacity in one of
these two contexts: