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This article is part of a mini-series about the blending modes in ON1 Photo RAW and ON1 Effects.

What Is The Soft Light Blending Mode?

Soft Light is part of the “contrast” group of blending modes, increasing contrast in a scene by darkening dark pixels and brightening lighter pixels. Soft Light is the least aggressive of the contrast blending modes. I reach for Soft Light when the Overlay blending mode is too strong. I most often use Soft Light for texture blending.

Texture Blending With Soft Light

I reach for Soft Light for nuanced, gentle texture blending. When the Overlay mode is too strong, I switch to Soft Light for more refined control. While ON1 has the Textures filter in Effects, I prefer to do my texture blending in Layers. Using a layer gives me more control of the position a texture and opens up creative options to apply adjustments to the texture itself.

The recipe for blending a texture with the Soft Light mode is straightforward:

1. Add a new layer to the layer stack

2. Use an ON1 Extras texture, one of your own textures, or navigate to any image on your computer

3. Switch the blending mode of the texture layer to Soft Light

How Is Soft Light Different From Overlay?

Soft Light is roughly half as strong as Overlay. Overlay is a more aggressive contrast blend and Soft Light is less aggressive. In texture blending, less of the texture “grit” will surface when blended. Below is the same image blending with the same texture, one with Soft Light and the other with Overlay.

Up Next

The next blending mode covered in this series is Vivid Light.