This week I’m going to show you one way that I use the colour burn blend mode in Procreate.

This is the first in a series of short videos exploring each of the blend modes in Procreate and how you can use them in your illustrations!

First up and in no particular order, other than this being the one I use the most, is colour burn!

This is the first in a series of short videos exploring each of the blend modes in Procreate and how you can use them in your illustrations!

What even is the colour burn blend mode?

It’s meant to be similar to the look you get when you burn a photograph to darken it during the development process of old fashioned photography. Extra light was applied to areas of the photo which needed to be darkened.

It works by looking at the blend colour and then darkens the base colour depending on how much of a contrast there is between the 2 colours.

Using the colour burn blend mode in Procreate

So if you use pure black on your colour burn layer you’ll get a super dark black effect as that’s the maximum amount of contrast, but as you adjust it down through lighter shades of grey you get a more subtle darkening effect as you’re decreasing the amount of contrast between the 2 colours.

What can I use colour burn for in Procreate?

Here’s one way I use colour burn in my illustrations. Because the colour burn mode has a darkening effect it’s really useful to use for shading, especially as it means you can easily switch out your colours without having to keep adjusting your shading colour too!

In the first screenshot below, you can see I have a layer of mid grey shading clipped to the petals. In the next screenshot you can see how is blends perfectly into the petals when we change the blend mode to colour burn!

A screenshot from procreate showing flowers before a colour burn blend mode is applied
A screenshot from procreate showing flowers after a colour burn blend mode is applied

Now to change the colour, all you need to do is alpha lock your base colour and choose another one to fill the layer with.

You could also got to the hue and saturation layer if you want to adjust it in a more intuitive way.

You’ll find that the colour burn blend mode affects some colours more than others so you might want to adjust the opacity for some colours, or, you could come into the hue and saturation again, this time on your colour burn layer and just the brightness for a stronger or more subtle effect.

Watch the full tutorial video

So that’s just one way I use this blend mode in my illustrations. How do you you use it in yours, let me know in the comments!

This is the first in a series of short videos exploring each of the blend modes in Procreate and how you can use them in your illustrations!

Thank you for watching and if you enjoyed this video, then please consider subscribing! If you want to take some more in depth classes from me, then you can find more info on my Skillshare classes here.

If you want to download the free Procreate stamp brush which I used to make the flowers in the video, you can find it in the Freebie Library! Ps. The stamp brush is for tracing over and using in your sketch layer! Have fun!

Thank you for watching, have fun, stay creative and I will see you next time!