• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Matt Doyle | Elated Communications

Web and WordPress Development

  • About Me
  • Blog
    • Design & Multimedia
      • Photoshop
      • Paint Shop Pro
      • Video & Audio
    • Online Marketing
      • E-Commerce
      • Social Media
    • Running a Website
      • WordPress
      • Apache
      • UNIX and Linux
      • Using FTP
    • Web Development
      • HTML
      • CSS
      • JavaScript
      • PHP
      • Perl and CGI Scripting
  • Portfolio
  • Contact Me
  • Hire Me
Home / Blog / Design & Multimedia / Photoshop / Fading One Image into Another

Fading One Image into Another

2 January 2003 / 2 Comments

Have you ever wanted to create an image that depicts two separate images fading into each other?

One image fading into another

This is a nice professional effect that’s easy to create using Photoshop’s Layer Masks. This tutorial shows you how it’s done.

Open the two images in Photoshop

We’re going to use the following two images in this tutorial:

Books
Clouds

Open these two images in Photoshop. They’ll appear as two separate documents.

Put the images into one document

So that we can do the fade between the images, we’ll need them both in the same document. The easiest way to do this is to Shift+click on the “Background” layer in the “books” document, and drag the layer on top of the “clouds” document:

Putting the two images into one document

(Holding down the Shift key ensures that the “books” image will appear in the centre of the “clouds” document.)

You should then have both your image layers in the “clouds” document, as follows:

Two layers in one document

Add a layer mask

We’ll now create a layer mask on the “books” layer. A layer mask behaves just like a regular mask, but it is attached to a specific layer. As with a normal mask, dark areas of the mask hide the underlying layer, while light areas of the mask reveal the underlying layer.

To create the layer mask, make sure the “books” layer (“Layer 1”) is selected in the Layers palette, then select Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All:

Adding a new layer mask

You can see that the layer now has a layer mask attached to it (the white thumbnail to the right of the layer thumbnail). Also, note that the mask is highlighted with a white rectangle around it – this means that you are now working on the mask, rather than the layer image. (You can click on the layer thumbnail and mask thumbnail to switch between the two.)

Fill the layer mask with a gradient

We’re now going to fill the layer mask with a gradient fill, going from white in the top left corner to black in the bottom right corner. Remember that white areas allow the layer to show through, and black areas hide the layer, making the underlying layer visible. This is how we will achieve our fade effect!

With Layer 1’s layer mask still selected in the Layers palette, select the Gradient tool:

The gradient tool

Select the “Linear” gradient type and, from the drop-down colour box, choose the “Black, White” swatch:

Choosing a gradient type

Now, click and drag in the document window from the bottom right of the image to the top left, to create the gradient fill:

Filling with the gradient fill

You should now see the finished effect, with one image smoothly fading into the other!

The finished fade

Tweaking the fade effect

If you’re not happy with the fade effect, you can play with the layer mask to achieve the desired result. Remember that the layer mask can be edited and drawn upon, just like a regular bitmap image!

For example, to produce a sharper transition, increase the contrast of the layer mask (Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast…):

Tweaking the contrast

You might also like to try playing with the various blending modes for Layer 1, or applying different filters to the layer mask, until you get the effect you’re after.

Enjoy! 🙂

Filed Under: Photoshop Tagged With: blending effects, gradient fading, merging one image with another

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. ObeyKiidG231534 says

    30 August 2012 at 6:23 pm

    I WANT TO FADE A PICTURE TO ANOTHER

    Reply
  2. chrishirst says

    2 September 2012 at 12:30 pm

    And have you not learnt to read yet??

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To include a block of code in your comment, surround it with <pre> ... </pre> tags. You can include smaller code snippets inside some normal text by surrounding them with <code> ... </code> tags.

Allowed tags in comments: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong> <pre> .

Primary Sidebar

Hire Matt!

Matt Doyle headshot

Need a little help with your website? I have over 20 years of web development experience under my belt. Let’s chat!

Matt Doyle - Codeable Expert Certificate

Hire Me Today

Call Me: +61 2 8006 0622

Stay in Touch!

Subscribe to get a quick email whenever I add new articles, free goodies, or special offers. I won’t spam you.

Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • Make a Rotatable 3D Product Boxshot with Three.js
  • Speed Up Your WordPress Website: 11 Simple Steps to a Faster Site
  • Reboot!
  • Wordfence Tutorial: How to Keep Your WordPress Site Safe from Hackers
  • How to Make Awesome-Looking Images for Your Website

Footer

Contact Matt

  • Email Me
  • Call Me: +61 2 8006 0622

Follow Matt

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 1996-2023 Elated Communications. All rights reserved.
Affiliate Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Service T&C | Credits