Draw image on top of another image with blending mode color

Question

In Photoshop you can select "Color" (the second from the bottom) to set the blending mode to the next lower layer:

If you have just a gradient on top of an image the result could look like this:

The description of the color blending mode I found somewhere is:

Color changes the hue and saturation of the lower layer to the hue and saturation of the upper layer but leaves luminosity alone.

My code so far is:

using(var g = Graphics.FromImage(canvas))
{
    // draw the lower image
    g.DrawImage(lowerImg, left, top);

    // creating a gradient and draw on top
    using (Brush brush = new LinearGradientBrush(new Rectangle(0, 0, canvasWidth, canvasHeight), Color.Violet, Color.Red, 20))
    {
        g.FillRectangle(brush, 0, 0, canvasWidth, canvasHeight);
    }
}

But that is - of course - just painting over the lower image.

So the question is:

How can I draw an image on top of another image using the blending mode "color" as available in Photoshop?

EDIT:

To make it a bit more clear of what I want to achieve:

And if someone wants to use the images for testing:

Answer 1

Here's a safe (and slower) version of the accepted answer for completeness.

        using (var lower = new Bitmap(@"lower.png"))
        using (var upper = new Bitmap(@"upper.png"))
        using (var output = new Bitmap(lower.Width, lower.Height))
        {
            var width = lower.Width;
            var height = lower.Height;

            for (var i = 0; i < height; i++)
            {
                for (var j = 0; j < width; j++)
                {
                    var upperPixel = upper.GetPixel(j, i);
                    var lowerPixel = lower.GetPixel(j, i);

                    var lowerColor = new HSLColor(lowerPixel.R, lowerPixel.G, lowerPixel.B);
                    var upperColor = new HSLColor(upperPixel.R, upperPixel.G, upperPixel.B) {Luminosity = lowerColor.Luminosity};
                    var outputColor = (Color)upperColor;

                    output.SetPixel(j, i, outputColor);
                }
            }

            // Drawing the output image
        }

Answer 2

Here is my solution. I've used Rich Newman's HSLColor class to convert between RGB and HSL values.

using (Bitmap lower = new Bitmap("lower.png"))
using (Bitmap upper = new Bitmap("upper.png"))
using (Bitmap output = new Bitmap(lower.Width, lower.Height))
{
    int width = lower.Width;
    int height = lower.Height;
    var rect = new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height);

    BitmapData lowerData = lower.LockBits(rect, ImageLockMode.ReadOnly, PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb);
    BitmapData upperData = upper.LockBits(rect, ImageLockMode.ReadOnly, PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb);
    BitmapData outputData = output.LockBits(rect, ImageLockMode.WriteOnly, PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb);

    unsafe
    {
        byte* lowerPointer = (byte*) lowerData.Scan0;
        byte* upperPointer = (byte*) upperData.Scan0;
        byte* outputPointer = (byte*) outputData.Scan0;

        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++)
            {
                HSLColor lowerColor = new HSLColor(lowerPointer[2], lowerPointer[1], lowerPointer[0]);
                HSLColor upperColor = new HSLColor(upperPointer[2], upperPointer[1], upperPointer[0]);
                upperColor.Luminosity = lowerColor.Luminosity;
                Color outputColor = (Color) upperColor;

                outputPointer[0] = outputColor.B;
                outputPointer[1] = outputColor.G;
                outputPointer[2] = outputColor.R;

                // Moving the pointers by 3 bytes per pixel
                lowerPointer += 3;
                upperPointer += 3;
                outputPointer += 3;
            }

            // Moving the pointers to the next pixel row
            lowerPointer += lowerData.Stride - (width * 3);
            upperPointer += upperData.Stride - (width * 3);
            outputPointer += outputData.Stride - (width * 3);
        }
    }

    lower.UnlockBits(lowerData);
    upper.UnlockBits(upperData);
    output.UnlockBits(outputData);

    // Drawing the output image
}

Answer 3

You will have to restructure your code so that you draw your gradient on a temporary bitmap, read each pixel from the temporary bitmap and canvas, and write a composed pixel to canvas. You should be able to find code converting between RGB and HSL colors, and once you can do that, setting the hue and saturation of pixels in canvas to the values from your temporary bitmap is trivial (though it's a bit harder if you want to use alpha values).