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SStuff-GMP
Participating Frequently
March 8, 2017
Question

Vivid Light Blend Mode Broken?

  • March 8, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3051 views

Hey there Photoshop Community!

So I am not sure which update it was, but over the last several months there has been a huge change to the vivid light blend mode algorithm. It functions completely differently than it used to. I have been searching the internet to figure out why but no one seems to be talking about it.

Vivid light no longer works with the color white. Instead of the wonderful boost to brightness and vibrancy, white just acts as if there is no blend mode at all. There are other ways to achieve this effect, but that requires the use of multiple effects layers and masks, whereas vivid light could achieve the same effects from a single layer

I’ve run into the issue where I now have to update several of my older files, but files where I use this effect have completely different color. I wanted to ask if there was a deliberate change to the vivid light blend mode or if this just happened to be an oversight. I’ve not found anywhere in the documentation that vivid light had been changed.

Here is an example of before and after this change. As you can see, Vivid light acts very differently from before.

Any thoughts on this matter are greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time in reading this and responding.

I am running Windows 7

Photoshop 2017.0.1

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Theresa J
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 8, 2017

Can you confirm that your color settings are the same in both versions? That could change the appearance.

SStuff-GMP
Participating Frequently
March 8, 2017

Yes. The color settings are the same. The example that I posted is the exact same file.

I save out a PDF upon completing a project. So, what you are looking at is the previously saved PDF version as the before update, and the working PSD file as the after update.

I can provide a couple more before and afters, but I cannot recreate the original effects because I do not have access to an earlier version of Photoshop.

davescm
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 8, 2017

If you want to post a link to the PSD I will happily open it here, in the three versions I have installed, for comparison (CC2017.01/CC2015.5 and CS6)

Dave

davescm
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 8, 2017

Hi

I just compared 3 versions using a gradient over an image. The gradient set to Vivid Light.

CC2017.0.1 :

CC2015.5 :

CS6 :

All seem to look the same.

There was an issue in CC2017 when certain blending modes acted differently when applied to a group as they did when applied to a layer. This was corrected in CC2017.0.1.  I just checked and the vivid light is acting the same on both group and layer.
Could it be that your original was produced in the broken version?   If not, and there is a bug, then you will need to provide additional information. The best way is to show a difference with very simple layers that can be reproduced and reported using the link below

Photoshop Family Customer Community

Dave