Opacity / transparency issue

[marmite]

Hi Folks

 

I'd like some help achieving a particular effect in Designer. I want to reduce the opacity of an area behind some text, to increase its readability.

 

So the end result would look like attached image 1. This is just a semi-opaque white disc between the text and background.

 

But ... with the design against a transparent background, the disc is evident, see attached image 2.

 

Is there a way of creating a semi-opaque circular area that give the opaqueness against the colour but retains the transparency on the background area. So that effectively means it won't matter what the overall background colour is.

 

I'm assuming I somehow need to create a duplicate section of the disc area of the original design (the grey and purple lines) which I can then separately reduce the opacity of. But I'm not sure how to do that whilst also getting rid of the original non-opaque area ... if that makes sense!

 

Appreciate any help.

 

 

[Madame]

I'm not sure I understand you right, but here we go. Some of this can maybe be of use to you?

 

Yes, you can make two circles. Drag one to the bottom and make it invisible for now.

The top one should go over the rectangles Set the opacity to your liking. Select that circle pluss all the rectangles and do the divide boolean action. 

Look in the layers panel and delete the parts you don't want.

Set the bottom circle visible and the opacity to your liking. 

[marmite]

Aha ... "divide boolean action" ... never heard of it  :)

 

I shall read all about it and try your suggestion; thank you.

[Madame]

I'm not sure it's what you want to achieve, but it's an useful tool and worth learning.. ;)

[marmite]

Wow, that was a journey   :blink:

 

The boolean actions are indeed very powerful. But it took a lot of experimentation to get things to work for my particular scenario. There's very little comprehensive documentation covering the nuances of so many of Designer's features and for non-designers who don't know what to look for it can be extremely difficult to fill in the blanks.

 

The two critical pieces of "missing" information for me were 1) the difference that layer order makes to the boolean operations (found by complete accident) and 2) the need to do Layer / Expand Stroke on my curves for boolean operations to work as needed (found by a combination of trial and error and falling across an old forum post.

 

But of course as with most experimentation and trial and error I did learn a huge amount.

 

Many thanks for the pointer Madame.

[Madame]

:D