Hello, this is my first post in here. I am normally more to photography and terragen. I am creating a space-nebular as can be seen in the picture. In **Set 1** is are two copies of the nebula. The lower is set to blending *normal*, the above has blending mode *color dodge*. The curves-layer just happens to be there ;-) Looks fine so far, but I would like to merge those layers to continue brushing. Look at the image in the second post, which is after merging. I tried several ways of combining these two layers and this is the darkest result, I can't get it any darker - or even in the original look. Any hint is wellcome, regards, Volker Harun

The second image

I think you need to merge the layers with the black background And the stars to keep the same appearance. The 'color dodge' has it's effect you see on the nebula only in combination with the stars and infinite black background. I would advice to merge the set, the stars and the black background and save it with another name and keep working on that. If you want to change, you can always go back. If you do not mind having more layers, ad a layer above the ones you want to merge and alt-'merge layers'. The merged layers will be on the new layer and you can work on top of that. If you want to change something, make the changes and do it again. Good luck!

Merging the whole set of layers works of course (thanks for the ALT-Merging, forgot that one meanwhile) Saving the nebula's mask and applying to the merged render did help a bit - the opacity in the lower half (that yellow spot) is vanishing, though. I am really missing the WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet-Effect when merging parts of the layers. Always having the problem is a bit of a bad tradeoff in my opinion. Regards, Volker Harun