Using blend effects

Blending is a way to merge two inputs with different modes. The input can be a ColorInput, an image, or a regular node. There are 17 different modes of merging. It's hard to find a use case for all of them so I will review only the most often used subset.

Cutting out with the SRC_ATOP blend mode

This blend mode draws only part of the top input lying inside the node it's applied to. By using this, you can get nice clipping effect:

Here, we used the same cosmonaut image as a fill for the "JavaFX" text:

// chapter8/combining/BlendSrcDemo.java
public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
    Image image = new Image(
        "https://github.com/sgrinev/mastering-javafx-9-book/blob/master/resources/sample.jpg?raw=true", 
        300, 300, true, true);
    ImageInput ii = new ImageInput(image, 0, 0);

Blend blend = new Blend();
    blend.setMode(BlendMode.SRC_ATOP);
    blend.setTopInput(ii);

    Text text = new Text(0, 80, "JavaFX");
    text.setFont(Font.font("Verdana", FontWeight...