The many forms of transparency

- Illustrator uses the word blend…in two very different ways.…First, you have the object blends…that we encountered back in chapter 23…of the advanced course…in which you create a series of sequential intervals…between two path outlines.…Second, you have the topic of this chapter, blend modes,…which allow you to combine the colors of a selected object…with those of the objects below…in a variety of different…and potentially interesting ways.…Now, unlike object blends,…which rely, in part, on the blend tool,…blend modes are expressed as a long list of items…inside a pop-up menu, and so they have names.…

For example, there's the Multiply mode,…which creates the effect of printing one ink…on top of another so everything darkens.…There's the Screen mode,…which works like shining your path outlines…from a bunch of flashlights onto a single screen,…so everything becomes brighter.…There's Difference, which subtracts the colors in one object…from those behind it to create on the fly inversion effects,…and many, many more.…