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TUTORIAL

Blending Modes and layer transparency are features mostcommonly associated with

Photoshop

and its Layers palette; it’s the missioncontrol centre when it comes to blendinglayers in

Photoshop

. You can achieve thesame result in

Illustrator

, but rather than blending pixels, you’re blending shapes.And here, rather than controlling it allfrom one palette, you must learn to usethree different palettes together.The Appearance palette, theTransparency palette, and the Layers palette all work together when it comesto blending shapes, groups, and layerswithin

Illustrator

. With the Layers paletteyou can specify your target – it can be asingle object, a group of objects, or anentire layer. The Transparency palette isthe place where you can alter theBlending Mode and opacity of your object. The Appearance palette enablesyou to target the stroke or fill of a shapeindependently, altering either the strokeor fill while leaving the other untouched.Once you get into the routine of usingthe three palettes, the flexibility of usingthem becomes quite evident. And it won’t be long until it feels intuitive.

Tutorial by Derek Leawww.dereklea.com

Derek Lea

explains how to add transparency to your objects and vary their Blending Modes within

Illustrator

to achieve rich, multi-layered, vector-based art that surpasses simple sections of solid, ﬂat colour

TRANSPARENCY TRICKS

ILLUSTRATOR

DOWNLOADTIME NEEDED

2.5 hours

INFO

Derek Leais anaward-winningillustratorand acclaimed author.His body of work is verydiverse, but he tries toincorporate tentaclesinto his illustrationswhenever he can. Viewmore of his work atwww.dereklea.com.

Christmas 2005

Changing the transparency of an object,or even placed artwork, is as simple asselecting the object on the artboard ortargeting it in the Layers palette. Next, dragthe slider in the Transparency palette toadjust the opacity of the selected object.