Hi [USER=143952]@LyssaTalbot[/USER]
As a shortcut to demonstrate what I think is the likely issue, I will create a demonstration using part of your image.
All I did was increase the size of the reduced-size image you supplied, and for the Afro Skeleton image, I took the hair and replaced it with a black-and-white pixel random pattern (done with the dissolve blend)
Using the same Layer Stack and Blend that you were using, when viewing at less than ~66 percent magnification, it appears that you can see underneath the background color:
[ATTACH=full]140975[/ATTACH]
However, when you increase the magnification above 66.67%, the head turns to pure black and white:
[ATTACH=full]140976[/ATTACH]
This seems to be akin to the behavior you are seeing.
The problem is that Photoshop does not show the image properly because, for speed reasons, it takes a shortcut that when you are viewing at reduced magnification, it merges the nearby pixels before it does the blend. So, all those black-and-white pixels for the head look like gray-level values at reduced magnification. Using gray values with the Pin Blend mode creates a look through to the lower level (I won't provide the details of the blended math).
The good news is that I believe this explains why you are having an issue.
The bad news is that the Pin blend mode (by itself) when it sees either a black or white pixel will leave them as black and white and you have no see-through capability. So, when you chose this blend with the very fine black and white image detail (at lower magnification) you are seeing a false blend.
You will note that in the areas where you had a very fine black and white pattern, the blend works, yet not in the white areas that are of a larger area.
So there are a couple of workarounds.
- One would be to add a bit of a blur to your black-and-white skeleton image (I did this by turning it into a Smart Object and using a Gaussian blur. Be sure to view at 100% when you adjust the blur level or you will again get a false blur:
[ATTACH=full]140977[/ATTACH]
Another approach is to use a different approach such as Blend If sliders to have the white areas to see through to the background color swirls. By itself, this does not give the same look though, and may require additional steps (e.g. masking)
I will stop here and see if this is helpful for you or not and if you want to explore additional approaches or you are good with the ones I already shared.
John Wheeler
