Learn about Blends Available in Adobe Flex Builder 2

The next topic to talk about is Blends. Blends allow you to blend color layers within your Flex application for some interesting Visual Effects. We'll demonstrate these initially inside of Adobe Flash 8, and then apply them through Flex. So press Alt+Tab back to Adobe Flash 8, go to the File menu, select Open, and from the _ne_assets folders under your Project Files, open fonts_blendModes.fla, here you will see a series of arrows overlaying a blue cloud background.

To briefly describe the blend mode available, Normal simply applies no blending whatsoever, between the blended object, and the base color behind it. Layer is similar allowing you to stack display elements on top of one anther without effecting their color. A Darkened blend looks at the color of each layer, the blended object in the base color behind it, and displays the darker color in place of the lighter color. A Multiply blend, multiplies the base color by the blend color, resulting in a darker more saturated image. A Lightened blend displays the lighter colors in the layer, replacing all darker colors with lighter colors from the layers below. A Screen blend looks at each channels color information, and multiplies the inverse of that colors, usually resulting in a lighter image. And Overlay blend multiplies the colors depending on the base color. The base is not replaced, but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color. It highlights and shadows texture whatever was below.

A Hard Light blend, provides an effect similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the image by multiplying the colors. An Add blend multiplies the lighter colors, while leaving the darker colors unchanged. A Subtract blend looks at the color information for each layer, and subtracts either the blend color from the base, or the base from the blend, depending on which has the greater brightness value. A Difference blend subtracts either the blend from the base, or the base from the blend depending on which has the greater brightness value. The effect is similar to a color negative. An Invert blend, inverts the selected layer colors from the layer below. An Alpha blend modifies the transparency of the layer at runtime potentially, and an Erase blend removes all the base color pixels, including those in the background image. Now let’s move back over to Flex Builder 2 using Alt+Tab.