Dodge modes lighten and burn modes darken as mirror images: dodging equals burning the negative

Named after darkroom photography (dodging blocks light to lighten; burning adds exposure to darken), a family of blend modes splits into dodges (lighten: Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge/Add) and burns (darken: Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn). The organizing principle is a symmetry: dodging an image is the same as burning its negative, and vice versa. So each dodge mode has a mirror-image burn counterpart obtained by inverting inputs and output. This lets you reason about an unfamiliar mode by inverting a familiar one, rather than memorising each formula.

Examples

Screen (dodge) mirrors Multiply (burn). Linear Dodge/Add mirrors Linear Burn. Color Dodge mirrors Color Burn. To predict Color Burn, invert both layers, apply Color Dodge, invert the result.

Assessment

State the dodge/burn symmetry in your own words, then use it to derive the burn counterpart of Screen. Verify it is Multiply.