What is the effect of the Multiply blending mode?

• A. It brightens the image by adding colors
• B. It saturates colors uniformly
• C. Multiply multiplies base and blend colors, resulting in a darker image; good for shading or shadows
• D. It applies a blur effect to the layer

Answer: (C)

Blending modes determine how pixels from one layer interact with pixels on the layers beneath. When using the Multiply mode, the color values of the base layer and the blend layer are multiplied together for each channel (red, green, blue). Because these values are in the 0 to 1 range, multiplying them tends to produce darker results. White leaves the base color unchanged, while black makes the result black. This makes Multiply ideal for shading or adding shadows, since it darkens only where the top layer has content and preserves the underlying texture and colors. It does not brighten the image, it doesn’t uniformly saturate colors, and it isn’t a blur effect.