SHREK: For your information, there’s a lot more to ogres than people think.
DONKEY: Example?
SHREK: Example? Okay. Uh… ogres are like onions.
DONKEY: They stink?
SHREK: Yes. No!
DONKEY: Oh, they make you cry?
SHREK: No!
DONKEY: Oh, you leave them out in the sun, they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs.
SHREK: No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
DONKEY: Oh… you both have layers… You know, not everybody like onions. Cakes! Everybody likes cakes. Cakes have layers.
SHREK: I don’t care what everyone likes. Ogres are not like cakes… You dunce, irritating, miniature beast of burden. Ogres are like onions. End of story. Bye bye. See ya later…
OK, you may be wondering what Shrek has to do with photography. Actually, it’s more about layers – specifically, layers in Photoshop.
I had been working with layers ever since my friend Duck Hunter showed me the technique. The process can add interest, texture, and even change the mood of a photograph. The process is simple enough…
1. Open a photograph in Photoshop or your image editor of choice.
2. Find an interesting texture, such as the ever-popular “Pollution” texture from Jerry Jones, , AKA Ghostbones, AKA SkeletalMess
3. Resize the texture to match the base photograph, then copy it into a layer on top of the base. Change the blend mode of the texture layer from “normal” to “overlay”…
…and the result is an image that combines aspects of both layers. You can change the opacity of the upper texture layer to increase or decrease the effect.