Layers and properties

Blend modes and layer styles

A layer’s blend mode decides how its colours mix with the layers below it. Layer styles add shadows, glows, bevels, overlays and strokes drawn from the layer’s own shape.

Blend modes

Select the layer.
Choose a Blend mode in Properties under Layer Settings, in the Blend mode column of the Timeline (Show Modes columns, or F4), or from the layer’s right-click menu.
Look at the Viewer. The mode mixes the layer with everything below it, from the next layer down to the composition’s background.

The Blend mode menu open in Properties with Multiply chosen; lines divide its groups. — The layer’s mode.
Each group starts after a line: these darken.
These lighten.

Normal simply covers what is below. The others are the blend modes⁠ (external website, opens in a new tab) of image editors and After Effects.

Every blend mode

The 38 modes of the menu, in its groups.
Group	Modes	What they do
Normal	Normal, Dissolve, and Dancing Dissolve	Cover what is below; the dissolves show a random share of pixels, by opacity.
Darken	Darken, Multiply, Color burn, Classic color burn, Linear burn, and Darker color	Keep the darker colours; white has no effect.
Lighten	Add, Lighten, Screen, Color dodge, Classic color dodge, Linear dodge (Add), and Lighter color	Keep the lighter colours; black has no effect.
Contrast	Overlay, Soft light, Hard light, Linear light, Vivid light, Pin light, and Hard mix	Darken the dark and lighten the light, for more contrast; 50% grey has no effect.
Difference	Difference, Classic difference, Exclusion, Subtract, and Divide	Subtract or divide one colour by the other.
Colour	Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity	Take the hue, saturation, colour or brightness of the layer, and the rest from below.
Stencil and silhouette	Stencil Alpha, Stencil Luma, Silhouette Alpha, and Silhouette Luma	Use the layer’s alpha or brightness to cut out, or into, everything below.
Utility	Alpha Add and Luminescent premul	Join two pieces of a picture along a soft edge without a seam, or add a glow that keeps its brightness where it is transparent.

A 3D layer does not offer Dissolve or Dancing Dissolve, and a 3D primitive layer always blends as Normal.
The Classic modes keep After Effects’ older formula for partly transparent layers. Over an opaque background they look the same as the modes they are named after.

Preserve Transparency and track mattes

Preserve Transparency, under Layer Settings, shows a layer only where the layers beneath it already have something: paint a texture over a shape without spilling past it. It does not change the layers below, and it cannot be combined with Collapse Transformations.

A layer can also take its transparency from another layer, its track matte, chosen under Relationships → Track matte in Properties or in the Track matte column of the Timeline. Mattes are covered in the Masks and keying chapter.

Layer styles

There are 9 layer styles, each described in the effect reference:

Right-click the layer in the Timeline or the Viewer, point to Layer Styles and choose a style. They are also under Layer Styles in Effects & Presets.
Set it in Effect Controls, where the style is listed with the layer’s effects. Its settings can be keyframed like any property.
Add more styles the same way.

A layer’s right-click menu with Layer Styles open: Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Satin, Color Overlay, Gradient Overlay and Stroke. — The layer’s blend mode, from the same menu.
The layer styles.
Adds the style to the layer.

Styles are drawn after the layer’s other effects, from its alpha, and always stack in the same order, Drop Shadow lowest and Bevel and Emboss highest, whatever their order in the list.
Styles work on Image, Video, Text, Shape, Solid, Composition, and Adjustment layers.
The Effects checkbox at the top of Effect Controls turns all of a layer’s effects and styles off at once.