Advanced blending modes similar to "Blend If" (Photoshop)?

I have attached an image for an example of what I am asking. I have spent hours trying to find a way to do this. I have used merge nodes and understand there is screen, and softlight, etc, but the results to me still look like the object isn't really there. Is there a node or a way to do an advanced blend like in the example image I attached with Affinity Photo or "blend if" like in Photoshop? I am tracking text on objects and would love to have a more realistic look. Hopefully, there is a guru out there that can throw me a line!

I've never heard of Photoshop's Blend If, but it appears to add two luma keyers into the mix: one that looks at the top image and one that looks at the bottom image. The results would be combined and then fed into the blue node of the merge.

So if you're wanting to have your paint appear on the bricks (darker) but not on the grout (brighter) you would feed a LumaKeyer from the wall and adjust it to key out brighter areas, then feed the resulting mask into the mask (blue) node of the Merge. Apply the appropriate transfer mode in the Merge, where the wall is the BG and the paint is the FG.

At least that's how I understand a blog posting on Blend If.

Wow, thank you so much that worked! You can only do it one direction it seems. Even using two and using merge with all the different operator types they seem to cancel each other out, but just pull up on the darks blends in nicely. I cannot thank you enough for the help on that I spent hours trying to figure it out!

You might need to use several LumaKeys (or Bitmap masks) and several Merges -- maybe with which layer is FG and which is BG switching between them -- to achieve your goals, piecing together the desired result a step at a time. And remember that LumaKey (and Bitmap) can use the color channels or saturation, etc. So you could exclude the grout as low-saturation rather than high-brightness if that helps you choose a better "If" in your blend.

Or it might involve fancier mixing/manipulation of mattes (MatteControl, etc).

Or maybe put on your math hat and pull out the Big Gun (CustomTool). You could do most anything with CustomTool, but you need to do it with math and programming.

I will keep tinkering around and see if I can enhance the results a bit more. I am not sure how nuts I need to go as I am tracking it on moving shots but if it was tighter the more detail I can get the better. If I could bug you for one more question. In the affinity photo video, he uses displacement to distort the edges and blend them in more. Obviously, on a surface, the edges are not going to be perfect. I was trying to use the displacement node for this but it does not seem to be acting the same way. I am fairly new to Fusion only a month or so and I am just trying to learn new creative things to add to my videos. Any advice regarding that?

You can only do it one direction it seems.

What do you mean by this?

You can only do it one direction it seems.

What do you mean by this?

I don't understand Blend If totally, but the answer I offered used the luma of the background to mask the foreground, which is then applied over the background with a transfer mode.

That's one direction, but it looks like Blend If also allows the luma of the foreground to affect something as well. Not sure what. But I can imagine it's either a combining of the FG luma key and BG luma key mattes (perhaps additive, perhaps subtractive) or using two Merges with the opposite FG/BG and luma keys, perhaps with different transfer modes as well.

Sorry I may have not explained myself correctly. The advice you provided for the Luma Keyer worked out perfectly. For the second question I will attach an image to show you what I am asking. He also used displacement to rough up the edges (after) to make it look even more applied to the object. I was using the displacement node but I do not seem to be getting results like this. It more or less was pushing the text in and out of the object smoothly. I am sure there is a way to do this and again I really cannot find information online.

Thanks again for all your help and time!

Hey,

Blend If is more or less recent way to play with curves... If you want to stick with that PS workflow, involve Channel Booleans, matte control and hueCurves nodes, and play with them and their thresholds...

Thanks for this extra advice. I got good results with the Luma Keyer but I will also play with this as well!