The Behind Blending Mode

The Behind blend mode is not available for layers, so I have used a different example image for this mode. It is available from the painting tools such as the paintbrush, airbrush, paint bucket, gradient, clone stamp, and shape tool (in fill pixels mode).

This blending mode allows you to paint directly on a layer without altering the non-transparent pixels that already exist in that layer. The existing pixels will effectively act as a mask, so that new paint will only be applied in the empty areas.

Think of it like this: If you were to place a sticker on a piece of glass, and then paint behind the sticker on the other side of the glass, you would get the same result as you do with the Behind blending mode. In this example, the sticker is the existing, non-transparent layer content.

In the example shown here, I used the paintbrush with a soft brush and a light blue paint color, moving my brush directly over the entire butterfly image.

The Behind Blending mode will be unavailable if preserve transparency is enabled on the target layer.