How to Make Your ArcGIS Pro Map Awesome with One Blend Mode

What! Blend modes have arrived to ArcGIS Pro 2.7. Get ready to blend, my friends. This is all I'm going to be doing/thinking/dreaming/talking about for all of 2021. There are lots of modes and lots of applications but here is ONE simple fast easy way to make your imagery just POP.
Check out some other social channels where I share how-to's and updates on random map adventures:
adventuresinmapping.com
www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/auth...
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[@txtoolfan]

I have so many projects that this will add some zing to. thanks John.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

sweet! me too.

[@ollah468]

I’ve been waiting for this for years! Stoked.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

me too! get ready to live.

[@ollah468]

@@JohnNelsonMaps haha, I know right? Not sure if I’m more excited about this tool or the eyedropper colour picker!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@ollah468 yes, another welcome one.

[@thomasrquintero]

Yes 2.7 is the bomb. So many new features! Aand a color dropper!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yes the eyedropper! that will be a big help.

[@madeinusa5395]

John - you so rock. Thank you for the heads up!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

you bet, have fun!

[@dhaselfeld]

Awesomification is the best. Thank you John!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks Duane!

[@GISandGenieCivil]

awsome trick , i like it a lot thanks bro

[@GabrielKakeKake]

It looks amazing... felicidades hermano

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks! Hope it comes in handy

[@ESTAFIED]

Thanks John,

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yes! happy blend mode-ing!

[@Ahmedali_-qd9eg]

Thanks

[@kiddeft]

Where did you get that great looking base satellite image from?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

that's just Esri's regular old awesome World Imagery basemap.

[@terresinconnues]

I've noticed that when you share an image from a layout, the blended layers look completely different than what you see on the screen. What's the best method for preserving the blending modes when exporting to a PNG or TIFF?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

export PNGs are faithful to what you see in the map viewer. you can also increase the DPI, or resolution, of the export and that can chance the appearance of the output as it will use data from a close zoom level. also i often apply some more contrast to my exported images in Adobe. i'm asking the team to add options like that directly in Pro layouts.

[@terresinconnues]

Thanks for the reply, John. PNG is my default so perhaps need to look into my display driver settings or something else because the output I'm getting is substantially different from what I see on the display. The output looks is much lighter than I would expect. Thanks again.

[@terresinconnues]

@@JohnNelsonMaps I figured out the issue. In my color management settings I was using "preserve color values" instead of "preserve color appearance". Now when I export a PNG (or any other file type) I get a faithful representation of what is presented on screen.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@terresinconnues oh wow, i never have tried that before! sounds like a scary feature to me! glad you found it and i'm glad to know about that checkbox now. thanks!

[@elliotmoses4409]

Does anyone know how to make the hillshade layer scale appropriate? thanks

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

I was using an image service from Living Atlas, so it provides the right scale. Here are some resources: livingatlas.arcgis.com/en/browse/#d=2&q=terrain%20hillshade

[@hanzazazel412]

Maybe this will solve the adobe pdf bug in showing grid lines when rendering transparencies...

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

certainly won't hurt!

[@furaosentu]

Huh... who'd've thought it. Layer blending just like in QGIS! Interesting!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yeah, isn't that great, Benjamin, you have to be so happy about this and really sincere!

[@azaleakamellia]

I just found out about this, but I'm having the issue where all my features disappear once I start blending one of my raster to the multi-directional hillshade Esri basemap. It would've been my Eureka moment but cut short by my panic attack when my 7 layers of data going MIA. Anyone experiencing this problem before? Or is it just me?

[@stensitr]

I have the same issue. All my vector data disapears when I apply blending mode to hillshade og image raster. Useless if you can't add data on top of blended rasters

[@azaleakamellia]

@@stensitr Ah! Someone has reached out to me via Twitter to help. I'll share what I find once I managed to shared the file with him. 😭 It really is sad not to be able to flex it in my report!

[@stensitr]

@@azaleakamellia I would love to find a solution for this bug :)

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@stensitr Yes, me too this is the first I've heard of it. Can you link to the tweet, @Azalea Kamellia?

[@azaleakamellia]

@@stensitr Try cleaning out your Display cache and change from OpenGL to DirectX if you were using the previous at present.

[@baohuachu186]

Can the local satellite file be generated with the hill shade effects?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

I don’t understand

[@shima.z3]

Hi i didn't have layers blend in my arcgispro? Why 🥺

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

You have to be running version 2.7 or newer. Check your version and get ready to live! :)

[@skywalker271]

WELL....! also: "no more hacks" me: I don't believe u...

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Ha!

[@TheGrandmaster1]

I mean this is great and all...but when you have 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Tangram Heightmapper, World Creator, Adobe Photoshop, and Substance Painter...lol...well..... those toys can make you anything your brain can imagine.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Have fun!