Assumed knowledge: Basic Photoshop skills, including using brushes, some blending and layer properties.
Concepts covered: How to blend pictures into a background via layer blending, colour blending and using brushes. How to remove white backgrounds from pictures using 2 different techniques.Blending pictures into a background or one another is a very important to have and this tutorial goes through the 3 best ways to blend objects into a background.

Getting Started

So that we can begin our blends we need to set up more kind of template. Firstly find a picture that you?’d like to blend and open it in Photoshop. Make sure that you have the standard windows open such as the History, layers and tools.

Right click on the layer of your picture and select duplicate layer or you can unlock the layer. Now we need to remove the white background from behind the picture, that is if your picture is not a transparent GIF. If it is and your happy with it then you can skip this step.

There are two ways that we can do this, via the magic wand tool or by blending the white out the layer. Firstly though create a new layer and then fill it with black via the paint bucket tool. Move that layer behind your picture so that you can tell how much white is gone. Then select the magic wand tool and click the areas that you want to remove and press delete. You can up your tolerance via the magic wand properties so it can take out more. Once your happy with the result you can move on.

The other way is to just right click on your picture and select blending options. Then move the blending of the white on the layer as seen in the screenshot. Move it as much as you need until it looks right.

This is my result. Its nothing special but that?’s the point, if we blend well then we won?’t need to worry too much about the white as long as most of it is gone.

Layer Blending

There?’s only one last step until this is blended in with the black background. Right click and select the blending options then from the various number of blends available select one which you want to use. You can play around with the transparency as well if you wish. There you go that is a simple blend. Here is my example:

Colour Blending

You can also blend colours together. For example make a character red on a red background. Select Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Hue and saturation You can play around with the colour in there. But if you want to add more depth then select Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Color Balance and edit from there. This edits everything that is under layer and tints it to the colurs and colour depth that you have selected. You can do this to ordinary pictures by themself by going Image>>Adjustments and so forth. Some people also like to desaturate there picture before adding the colours, or they work in black and white when creating their image. Here is my example, since the background is black I chose a dark blue for my picture, usually you?’d not have a solid black background so it would be easier to blend.

Brush blending

To use brushes for blending is also rather simple but it allows more flexibly because you can chose the areas on which you want to blend and not just the whole picture. Although you can blend on radial effects etc. brushes still allow more control.

Select the brushes that you?’d like to use and set them to a blend and transparency that would suit your picture. Then just use them over the edges of the picture. You can go in deep or just around the edges a bit slightly its up to you. Using brushes to blend is a skill that develops over time so be sure to practice using it. Here is my example: