by Chad Neuman

Adjusting the opacity of shapes and lines can help create interesting designs for flyers, advertisements, or magazine layouts. Here’s a basic technique to add to your design repertoire.

Step 1
Create a new document at 1024×768 pixels and 72 pixels/inch. Click-and-hold the Rectangle tool to get to the Ellipse tool and select it.

Step 2
Click-and-drag a circle, holding Shift to maintain proportion. Click the color on the Options palette and change it to #0e71cd.

Step 3
Click-and-drag a slightly smaller circle, and change the color to #f3a704.

Step 4
Click-and-drag another circle, with the color #10ae00.

Step 5
Click-and-drag the fourth circle, with the color #f6f900. Click-and-drag this shape layer below the previous one in the Layers palette.

Step 6
Change the Transparency of each shape layer to 50% in the Layers palette.

Step 7
Open a night photo and click-and-drag it with the Move tool onto the transparent shapes file. Click-and-drag the new layer below the shapes.

Step 8
Add some white text with the Text tool above the other layers.

Step 9
Click the New Layer icon on the bottom of the Layers palette and select the Brush tool. Change the Brush to soft brush, 65. Click-and-drag some lines. Again, we need to adjust the Opacity. Change the lines slightly, to 95% in the Layers palette.