Blend Modes WITH names by SpaceRay

Be able to use NAMES for blending modes AND also be able to choose which blend modes you want to include in your filter

I have made this filter snippet as an alternative to the number slider that is the only way to show blend modes in a filter and I find bad that you can´t see the NAMES of the blend mode instead of a number.

The second main reason to make this filter apart fr om using names, is to be able to CHOOSE which blend modes you want to included in your filter as shown on points 2, 3 and 4 below, because with the slider you are limited and must follow the same default order

5 REASONS WHY I MADE THIS

1 - Have NAMES instead of numbers for the blend modes.

2 - Be able to choose which blend modes you want to have in your filter

3 - Have only the blend modes that work well with your filter

4 - Be able to choose choose the blend mode directly without having to use a slider

5 - FF 4.0 seems that will keep using numbers instead of names for blend modes

ALTERNATIVE WAY TO USING MULTIBLEND
SUGGEST YOURSELF ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE WAY
See at the end for these two ones

1 - Have NAMES instead of numbers for the blend modes.

2 - Before it has been suggested in other threads to make this filter but no one have done it, and now that FF 4.0 most possibly will not have this and feeling bad with having to always see the numbers equivalent to the name of the blend mode, I have the list shown below printed near my monitor, but I want to have it inside my filter, so I have made this filter.



2 - Be able to choose which blend modes you want to have in your filter

And having the names replacing the numbers, is not the only reason, because when making a filter I have found that using blend modes does not always give good results with all the blend modes, and maybe for example it works well with the first 5 blend modes but then does not with the others, so you could limit the value of the slider in FF and only use the first five, but what if they are the last 5 blend modes and not the first ones?

So a good and useful thing about this way, is that you can choose wich ones you want to put in the filter, and in in wich order you want them, something impossible in the default slider way.

You can choose for example to have just 3 blend modes, AND that do not follow the same order in the default FF blend mode list

3 - Have only the blend modes that work well with your filter

In FF way you can ONLY have a slider with the blend modes in a slider and only disable or limit the blend modes you do not want if you lim it the range from the last to downward, but what happens if you want to have only blend modes 2, 4, 7, 12 and 15? You can´t do it with default FF, but you can do it this way I have done.

So if you test the blend modes with your filter and for example only 6 of the blend modes work right and others do not work well or give unwanted results, you can put only these 6, and does not matter if they are continuos in the list and you do not have to follow the same order as it happens with the slider way.

4 - Be able to choose choose the blend mode directly without having to use a slider

The FF slider is not very good for choosing the blend mode, as it may go too fast through the options and you may miss the number of the blend mode, and then the easier way is to put directly the number of the blend mode you want in the slider, but for me it is easier to just search for the NAME of the blend mode I want and just click on it directly, and do not have to see a list reference list to see the number of the blend mode, and I have bad memory for remembering it

5 - FF 4.0 seems that will keep using numbers instead of names for blend modes

Since long time ago has been requested in many different threads to have a drop down menu for selecting blend modes, or any other possible way (have a menu that could open in the same way as the presets menu) for showing the NAMES of the blend modes instead of just a number, but 5 years after there is no news that this will be included in FF 4.0, so I have thought to make an alternative way using checkboxes with NAMES instead of numbers

Thanks to Sphinx for solving the multiblend problem

ALTERNATIVE WAY TO USING MULTIBLEND

Xirja and others forum members have also suggested before to use IF component with Threshold instead of using multiblend as I have done in this filter, and is also a good and alternative way to do it, and do not know which way could be better, or if both can have the same result through a different way.

SUGGEST YOURSELF ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE WAY

Maybe this way I have done is not the best way to do it, and could there be a better, easier and/or simply way to do it, but I do not know it, and if you know a better way to do it, please, feel free to put it here and will be welcome, useful and good to have more ways to do it.

I think part of this way is to design a filter that doesn't require all blend modes at once. I feel in fact the initial design of the program encompassed that decision, that while popup menus would be wonderful, the int slider works as a gestural control forcing you to consider the visual feedback than look at a list of possible names that mean little to nothing to an average user. But either way it's nice to have list items anyway.

Another thing to note is that I personally think it's considerate to restrict choices for the end user. That way the design output is always more consistent than something that attempts to output inconsistent results. Judging from having all 19 blend modes, I can see the idea and the possible benefit, but I also see the flaw in its output designs given how some blend modes fail to behave. I'm speaking about public filters specifically.

It's just another way I'm looking at the whole fact about making huge lists of this stuff. In some ways it's cool. In other ways I kinda wouldn't see the benefit.

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Skybase wrote I think part of this way is to design a filter that doesn't require all blend modes at once. I feel in fact the initial design of the program encompassed that decision

YES, exactly, the point of this filter is to show a possible way to isolate specific blend modes that give a good result within the filter and not show others that may give bad results, as not always all the blend modes give good results, and I think is a bad thing to put a slider with 19 blend modes, when maybe only 3 or 4 gives really good results, and the user will not know wich ones are the ones that gives good reaults, only by trial and error, amd trying all 19 blend modes to see it and find out is not a good and desired thing

So as said the point of this is to find a good, efficent, fast, clear and easy way to limit and show individual blend modes on the settings panel of a filter for the user to just click on a checkbox, or have a limited slider or whatever, but taking out the blend modes that gives bad results

The good thing would be to have a customizable drop drown setting, pop up thing, or whatever to choose the blend modes with text, and be able to restrict and choose which ones of the blend modes are included, but I think that this depends on how is FF built, and is not possible without changing the code of FF, so is why I am trying to find an alternative

i know that when I tell about "bad results" it may be a subjetive thing and someone may think that this that I think is a bad result may be beautiful and interesting, but I can tell than sometimes some blend modes on specific filters give very bad results giving only a bad and ugly combination or a solid color, or maybe you do not want that the filter gives some unwanted results that are beyond the purpose of the filter

I have seen that it has been downloaded 1456 times so this shows that there is really interest and is wanted to have blend modes WITH names instead of a single number

This was made for FF 4.0 and then in FF 5.0 there was still no news about any change in blend modes, and now in 2020 with FF 9.0 it is still exactly the same as before and there is no change and still without any way to show the name with a simple slider

The way I show here may work only right to limit the amount of blend modes, but does not look right if you have to put all the 19 blend modes

It would be really great, useful, helpful, cleaner, better and faster to have just a single blend mode component that could show the names instead of a number, as it already happens in the remapper.