Transparency InformationNow there should be some confusion about all the different transparency information. There are several possibilities to specify the opacity of a pixel:
First of all, the terms "transparency", "alpha value" and opacity all mean the same... Solid Color Opacity
If a pixel is colored using the solid color (because the predefined variable Predefined Variable alpha
If a formula adjusts the predefined variable
Alpha Channel Editor
The alpha gradient will be used for all non-solid pixels which were colored using an indirect coloring formula (i.e. a coloring formula which used the predefined variable Predefined Variable pixelcolor
If a pixel was colored using a coloring formula which adjusts the predefined variable Ok, these were the methods how a single pixel in a single layer gets its alpha value. If you now switch off the alpha information using the ignore alpha setting, then the resulting alpha value simply will be set to 1. The next setting is the: Factor
The Factor is a general multiplier for the final alpha value. It does not matter how the alpha
value was calculated or what the result is: It will be multiplied with the "Factor" (whose range is from 0% to 100%, i.e. from 0 to 1).
So whether the alpha value resulted from the solid color (and its opacity) or from Layer Mask If you now declare that a layer should be used as a mask for the layer above (by switching on the Mask-checkbox), then the
resulting alpha value from the mask layer will be multiplied with the resulting alpha value from the layer above. And now the last case: If a layer has more than one mask layer assigned to it, then the resulting alpha value from the mask layers is the minimum alpha value of them. This minimum alpha value then gets multiplied with the resulting alpha value from the layer above the mask layers, and then the alpha value gets multiplied with "factor"... Ok, enough confusion for today! Congratulations if you understood the details above. If not, just play around with the settings, their meaning will be quite intuitive! |