Apple Motion 5.1.1 User Manual
Page 240
 
Chapter 7
Basic compositing
240
The Soft Light blend mode is useful for softly tinting a background image by mixing it with 
the colors in a foreground image.
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Hard Light: Causes whites and blacks in the foreground image to block the background image. 
Whites and blacks in the background image interact with overlapping midrange color values 
in the foreground image. Overlapping midrange color values are mixed together differently 
depending on the brightness of the background color values. Lighter background midrange 
values are mixed by screening. Darker background midrange values are mixed together by 
multiplying. The visible result is that darker color values in the background image intensify the 
foreground image, while lighter color values in the background image wash out overlapping 
areas in the foreground image. The order of two layers affected by the Hard Light blend mode 
is important.
Boxes object on top
Chimp object on top
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Vivid Light: Similar to the Hard Light blend mode, with two exceptions: Vivid Light mixes 
midrange color values together more intensely, and preserves whites and blacks from either 
overlapping image in the end result. (Dithering can cause overlapping areas of solid white 
and solid black.) Overlapping midrange color values are mixed together differently depending 
on the brightness of the background color values. Lighter midrange values become washed 
out, while the contrast of darker midrange color values is increased. The overall effect is more 
pronounced than with the Hard Light blend mode. Reversing the two overlapping images 
results in subtle differences in how the overlapping midrange color values are mixed together.
Boxes object on top
Chimp object on top
67% resize factor