Opacity and Blending Modes

Opacity and Blending Modes

Learn about Opacity and the different types of Blending Modes to see how they can affect your work.

When to use

Opacity and Blending Modes work best when you have two or more shapes on top of each other that you want to blend together.

Instructions

Working with Opacity

• Create four squares and fill them with some of the colors you used in the previous lesson.
• Use the Align Tool to center them into a single column.
• Create another column of squares and fill them with four different colors. 
• Select one of the squares and then use the Transparency Panel to lower the opacity to somewhere around 25% or so.
• Select this lower opacity square and move it over some of the other squares to see what happens when the two shapes overlap. You'll notice that the overlapping areas produce a different shade of color.

Working with Blending Modes

• Select your lower opacity square and bring the opacity back up to 100%.
• Extend this shape using the handles around the bounding box to make the shape taller, so that it's about the same height as all four of the squares in your second column.
• Place this shape so that it covers about half of the column of squares.
• Begin scrolling through the different Blending Modes to see how they change the appearance of the color they are placed on top of to get a better idea of how these Blending Modes work.

Hints & tips

• Lowering the opacity of a shape can create a nice effect when it's layered above another shape.
• Blending Modes like Darken and Multiply work best for shadows, while Blending Modes like Screen and Overlay work best for adding highlight areas to your work.