Merge & Apply in Resolve & Fusion

Every time you ever composited two images in Resolve or Fusion, you use it without thinking: the plain old Merge node. Even in Photoshop or any other image editor, you are merging layers and effectively doing the same while thinking about it even less…

In this tutorial, I want to take a step back and discuss those little extra settings that are worth thinking about. You will see that a Merge node is a capable tool that does much more than “Foreground over Background”.

In the first part of the tutorial, I will discuss the different ways the alpha channel is handled and manipulated in the merge. Incidentally, this allows you to premultiply an image inside the merge.

In the second part of the tutorial, I’m looking at different apply modes or blend modes and show examples of how you can use them. Screen, Multiply, Overlay, Lighten, and Darken are my most common choices.