Miniwindows in MUSHclient - Soft/hard light blending modes

Written by Nick Gammon - July 2008. Updated September 2010.

On this page:

• Overlay
• Soft Light
• Hard Light
• Vivid Light
• Linear Light
• Pin Light
• Hard Mix

See also:

• Introduction
• Creating miniwindows
• Drawing shapes
• Drawing images
• Drawing text
• Hotspots
• Helpful graphics functions

Soft/hard blending modes

See Blending images for a description of how to use the image blending function. On this page are illustrated the "soft/hard light" modes.

Base image (in miniwindow)	Blend image (mentioned in WindowBlendImage)

Overlay mode (17)

Overlays the base colour with the blend colour, depending on the base colour.

Soft Light mode (18)

Like shining a soft light on the base layer. Depending on the blend colour, either lightens or darkens the area. The effect varies depending on whether the base colour is light or dark.

This mode is commutative (base and blend layer can be swapped).

Hard Light mode (19)

Same as overlay mode with the layers swapped. Applying a light colour lightens the result, applying a dark colour darkens the result.

Vivid Light mode (20)

Burns or dodges the colours by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend colour. If the blend colour is lighter than 50% grey, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend colour is darker than 50% grey, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.

Linear Light mode (21)

Burns or dodges the colours by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend colour. If the blend colour is lighter than 50% grey, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend colour is darker than 50% grey, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.

Pin Light mode (22)

Replaces the colours, depending on the blend colour. If the blend colour is lighter than 50% grey, pixels darker than the blend colour are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend colour do not change. If the blend colour is darker than 50% grey, pixels lighter than the blend colour are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend colour do not change. It acts like Multiply when the upper layer color is darker than neutral grey, and acts like screen if the upper layer color is lighter than neutral grey.

Hard Mix mode (23)

Hard Mix reduces the colours in an image to just eight pure colours, directly related to the underlying image colour.

Examples on this page

The examples on this page are taken from Fields of gold... by Spiralz, and Thanks to solea by jam343. These are licensed for royalty-free use under the Attribution 2.5 Generic License. They were obtained from the web site http://www.everystockphoto.com/.

Some ideas and descriptions were adapated from the Pegtop.net Blend Modes article.

Summary of the pages with the various mode groups:

• Normal, average, dissolve
• Darkening modes
• Lightening modes
• Soft/hard light modes
• Difference/logical modes
• Glow modes
• Colour copying
• Colour limiting
• Channel modes
• HSL modes

Other pages about miniwindows

• Introduction
• Creating miniwindows
• Drawing shapes
• Drawing images
• Drawing text
• Hotspots
• Helpful graphics functions

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