In Adobe Illustrator there are so many ways to enhance our designs.
You can adjust the opacity of content or make it transparent and also apply blending modes to your artwork.
Let's start by learning how to make content transparent using opacity.
In this design, there's a shape here that's meant to be a reflection of the sunshine on the water.
And to make it more transparent or see-through, you'll select it and adjust the opacity.
So, with the Selection Tool selected, click to select the artwork.
In the Properties panel on the right, you'll see Opacity.
To adjust the Opacity, you can either select the value and type a new one in or click the arrow the right of the value to show a slider.
Then drag that slider to the left to change the opacity.
Opacity ranges from 0 to 100%. 100% is completely opaque or not see-through, and 0 is completely transparent.
You can also apply opacity changes to multiple selected objects at once, groups, layers and a lot more.
For instance, click one of the clouds and they're all selected because they're grouped together.
To adjust the opacity, come back over to Opacity in the Properties panel, click the arrow, and drag the slider.
Now, if you were to ungroup the clouds the opacity changes you just made would be removed since the opacity was applied to the group.
If you want to practice adjusting opacity, try adjusting the opacity for some other artwork in this design.
Now, another way to enhance your artwork is to apply blending modes.
Blending modes can be used to blend colors of objects with the colors of underlying objects.
When you apply a blending mode to artwork, the effect of the blending mode is seen on the content beneath.
You can see how the green in each of these circles is darker, where the circles overlap.
This is caused by applying a blending mode called multiply to each circle.
Now to finish the logo on the right, you're going to make a copy of this circle using the Rotate Tool and you're going to apply blending modes to it.
So, with this Selection Tool, click to select the circle.
To rotate it, select the Rotate Tool in the Tool Bar on the left.
The crosshair you'd seen in the center of the circle tell you that the circle will rotate around the center by default.
We want the circle to rotate down here and also make a copy.
So, to set the rotate point and copy it at the same time press the Option key on Mac OS or Alt key on Windows, click and release to set where the circle will rotate around down here, and open the Rotate dialogue box.
You can then release the key.
Change the Angle to 52, and to make a copy click Copy.
Now you have changed the color of the new circle, just to see how blending modes work.
Click the Fill color on the right, and with the Swatches selected, click to apply another color.
Now, to blend the color of the circle on top with the color fill of the circle beneath, you'll apply a blending mode.
Click the word Opacity in the Properties panel to see the Transparency panel.
Click the Blending mode menu here.
Blending modes are arranged in groups in the menu based on how they affect the artwork.
For instance, the Darken blend mode here emphasizes dark areas and doesn't show white.
Blend modes on this Darken group produce a result that is darker than either the selected or the underlying content.
The Lighten blend modes down here emphasize light areas and do not show black.
Blend modes in the Lighten group produce a result that is lighter than either the selected or the underlying content.
The Lighten blend modes are really useful when you have light content on darker content that you want to blend in.
Choose Multiply, and the resulting color is a darker color since the color where the circles overlap is multiplied.
Try choosing some other blend modes to see what happens, returning to Multiply when you're finished.
Now, to make the circle green again, click the Fill color on the right and click to apply this green.
You can still see the colors blending based on the blending mode you chose.
Now to finish the logo, you'll copy and rotate more of the circles.
We're going to let Illustrator do the heavy lifting here.
So, we're going to have it repeat the rotation and the copy we did earlier.
So, choose Object Transform Transform Again.
And you'll see a shortcut for this Command.
It's Command D on Mac OS or Control D on Windows.
Now, to make more copies and rotate them further, we'll use the keyboard shortcut.
So, press Command D on Mac OS, or Control D on Windows several more times until you see all the circles.
You can also apply opacity and blending modes together.
To make all the circles lighter overall, you'll select them and change the opacity.
So, select the Selection Tool and drag across them.
In the Properties panel on the right, try changing the Opacity to around 50%.
To finish the logo, you can drag the tree onto the shapes.
Why don't you try experimenting by applying different colors and different blend modes to the circles, to see what you come up with?
