The Color blend mode is actually a combination of the first two modes in the Composite group, Hue and Saturation. In fact, by no sheer coincidence, it's named the Color blend mode, and if you recall from the first page, it's found in the Composite group of blend modes along with the Hue, Saturation and Luminosity modes. Our fourth essential blend mode in Photoshop has nothing to do with shadows, highlights or image contrast and everything to do with color. The Screen blend mode ignores black areas and makes everything else lighter, while the Overlay blend mode ignores areas that are 50% gray and makes dark areas darker and light areas lighter, improving image contrast. The Multiply blend mode ignores white areas and makes everything else darker.
Every layer blend mode we've seen so far in our look at the essential blend modes for photo editing in Photoshop has been about darkening images, lightening images, or both.