The Hard Mix Blend Mode in Photoshop

Download the Actions here: http://www.f64.co/hardmix

The Hard Mix Blend Mode is AMAZING!
I could tell you all day long that the Hard Mix Blend Mode is the most fantastic Blend Mode in Photoshop, but you'd have to see it to believe it.  That is because the Hard Mix Blend Mode,  when applied "as-is" is trash, it's horrible at best.   

The Hard Mix Blend Mode is in the Contrast Blend Mode group and derives it's power from the Linear Light Blend Mode, consider it a distant cousin.  When you first apply the HArd Mix blend mode you will see a considerable amount of Black, White, and maybe some variation of speckled Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Magenta, or Cyan.  What it does is break your image down into eight colors and only eight colors.  Pointless right?

When first applied it is pointless.  However, Hard Mix (like its distant cousin Linear Light) is controlled by FILL, primarily,  and Opacity secondarily.  Typically I use the Hard Mix Blend Mode with a Color Fill Adjustment Layer.   It looks like this:

 Apply a Solid Color Fill to your image.
Change the Blend Mode to Hard Mix
Drop the Opacity between 15 and 25%
Now use Opacity to control the intensity
What is happening here is that the Fill is constraining the EQUATION of how the layer you have selected with HArd Mix will interact with the rest of the pixels.   Opacity is controlling the INTENSITY of the blend mode after the equation. 

Confusing?  No worries,  watch the video tutorial below and PLEASE download the actions I created for you here as well.