Changing the opacity of graphics adds an interesting layered look to any layout. Let’s look at how to change opacity in InDesign.
InDesign has a wide variety of impressive features to help your project stand out. One popular technique is adjusting the opacity of your text or graphics. In this walkthrough, we’ve shared how to change opacity in InDesign in two different ways: quickly with the Opacity slider and more granularly through the Effects panel.
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What Is Opacity?
Often referred to as “transparency” in print design, opacity is the level of light allowed to travel through an object. Adjusting opacity allows you to fade, blend, brighten, or layer within a project.
By default, all graphics and text elements will appear solid in InDesign, with an opacity of 100%. From there, you can change the percentage to make the object appear fully opaque (100%), fully transparent (0%), or somewhere in between.
Video Tutorial: Changing Opacity in InDesign
If you’re a visual learner, check out this excellent tutorial covering both ways to change opacity in InDesign.
The Easy Way: How to Change Opacity in InDesign
Here’s the simplest way to change opacity in InDesign:
- Select your object from the canvas.
- Click into the dropdown menu that says 100% (located to the right of the fill and stroke settings). Then use the slider to adjust the opacity.
The More Granular Way: Using the Effects Panel
If you’d like finer control over the opacity settings of your object, you can use the Effects panel instead of the basic slider.
How to Change Opacity Through the Effects Panel
- Open your document in InDesign and select an object.
- Go to Windows > Effects from the main menu and adjust the transparency settings of the object. (See explanations of each setting below.)
What Are the Effects Panel Settings?
There are a wide range of opacity options in InDesign’s Effects panel:
- Blending Mode: Adjusts how an object’s colors blend with other objects.
- Opacity: Changes the object, stroke, fill, or text transparency.
- Isolate Blending: Applies blending to an object group.
- Knockout Group: “Knocks out” or “blocks out” underlying objects, based on the opacity and blending settings.
- FX: Shows a list of all transparency effects.
To give you even finer control, each of these Effects settings is available for any and all aspects of the selected object, including:
- Object: Changes the entire object, including the stroke, fill, and text.
- Graphic: Affects a graphic selected using the Direct Selection tool.
- Group: Affects a group selected using the Direct Selection tool.
- Stroke: Only affects an object’s Stroke.
- Fill: Only affects an object’s Fill.
- Text: Changes the text inside an object, but not the text frame.
All changes done through the Effects panel will be reflected live on your selected object. Try out a few different effects on different parts of the object, observe the results, and find an approach that works for your layout.
Cover image via Ardea-studio.
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