How To Blend Text Into Photos In Photoshop Using Blend If

In this short video tutorial, Justin Odisho demonstrates how to use blend if in Photoshop to blend text into an image and more.

The power of “Blend if”

The “bled if” function in Photoshop gives you more control of the way that you can blend two layers than the standard layer blend modes (although you can certainly combine both to get even more control over the result).

To use the blend if function in Photoshop choose the top layer and click the right mouse button and choose “blending options” (double click on the layer will also work).

In the box which opens you will see a tab called blending options and the section blend if. Here you can choose if you want to apply the blending to gray or one of the three RGB options. Next, you have two sliders the first is called “This layer” and the second called “Underlying layer”.

It is important to understand what can each of these do and how to use them so let’s go over them one by one:

This layer – This slider uses information from the layer you have chosen. Blend if will make specific areas (of the layer) invisible depending on how you set the slider. The left part will hide darker areas and the right brighter areas.
Underlying layer – This slider uses information from the rest of the image (i.e. the layer/s below) to show or hide certain areas. Again, the left slider will hide areas with darker underlayers and the right will hide areas with brighter underlayers. Note that you can combine both sliders.

For both sliders, you can separate each slier (remember you have one on both ends so 4 in total) into two parts and create a feathering effect to give you even more control.

In the bonus video below you can see a much more realistic demonstration (and possibly a better overall explanation) of the function of the blend if in Photoshop.

Bonus video: Aaron Nace from Phlearn video on

More on Blend Layers

We have covered the topic of blending modes in Photoshop extensively in several different articles including “Different Ways to Blend Text into Your Photos in Photoshop” by photographer Nathaniel Dodson and “understanding and Using Blending Modes in Photoshop” with Aaron Nace from Phlearn.

You can find many more Photoshop video tutorials on LensVid’s Photoshop section.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.