Written By Steve Patterson

If you were to round up a group of long-time Photoshop users and ask them to name a feature in Photoshop that they've never found a use for, there's a good chance the Dissolve blend mode would be mentioned over and over again. While other layer blend modes like Screen, Multiply and Overlay are some of the most important and often used features in all of Photoshop, the Dissolve blend mode, which creates a seemingly random "speckled" pattern as it blends layers together, is usually ignored. Since no one likes to be the unpopular kid, I thought it would be fun to look at a couple of ways the Dissolve blend mode can be used to quickly add more interest to a photo. First, after applying a simple sepia tone effect to our image, we'll add a bit more of an artistic look to it by combining the Dissolve mode with one of Photoshop's filters. Then we'll see how to use Dissolve to easily create a speckled photo border!

I'll be using Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial, but any recent version will work just fine. Here's the image I'll be using:

Here's how it will look when we're done:

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Let's get started!

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

As usual, the first step in creating our photo effect is to duplicate the Background layer so that we don't damage our original image. To do that, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy. Or, for a much faster way to duplicate a layer, simply press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac):

Either way tells Photoshop to create a copy of the Background layer, and if we look in the Layers palette, we can see that we now have two layers. The original image is sitting safely on the Background layer on the bottom, while a copy of the image is sitting directly above it. Photoshop has automatically named the new layer "Layer 1":

Step 2: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

Before we get around to using the Dissolve blend mode, let's first convert our color photo to a sepia tone. We can do that quickly and easily using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on the New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. It's the circle split diagonally between black and white. Then choose Hue/Saturation from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

If you're using Photoshop CS3 or earlier, this will bring up the Hue/Saturation dialog box. If you're using Photoshop CS4 as I am here, the Hue/Saturation options will appear in the Adjustments Panel, which is new to Photoshop CS4. If we wanted to simply convert the image to black and white, we could do so by dragging the Saturation slider all the way to the left, which would remove all of the color, leaving us with a black and white photo. I'd rather make things a bit more interesting by adding a sepia tone effect. To do that, select the Colorize option at the bottom of the dialog box or Adjustments Panel, which will colorize the entire image using a single color. Then set the Hue value to around 40, either by dragging the Hue slider or by typing the value directly into the input box:

Step 3: Change The Blend Mode Of The Adjustment Layer To "Color"

Your image should now be colorized with a sepia tone. Let's make sure we're affecting only the colors in the image, avoiding any changes to the brightness values, by changing the blend mode of the adjustment layer. You'll find the Blend Mode option in the top left corner of the Layers palette. By default, it's set to Normal. Click on the word "Normal" or on the small arrows to the right of the word to bring up a list of all the available blend modes and choose the Color blend mode from down near the bottom of the list:

As we looked at in much more detail in our Photoshop's Five Essential Blend Modes For Photo Editing tutorial, the Color blend mode blends only the colors from the selected layer with the layer or layers below it. The brightness, or "luminosity" values, are left untouched. Here's my image after adding the sepia tone and changing the blend mode:

Now that we've added our sepia effect, let's add more of an artistic feel by combining the Dissolve blend mode with one of Photoshop's filters. We'll do that next!

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