Mastering the Transparency Tool

The Transparency Tool lets you add adjustable transparency gradients to objects, images, shapes, and text. By dragging on the canvas, you create a transparency ramp that can fade an object from fully visible to partially or fully transparent. It supports linear, elliptical, radial, and conical modes (depending on the Affinity app) and allows fine-tuning of the transparency nodes for precise control. You can also apply noise to transparency, reverse the gradient direction, and edit individual node opacity for multi-point fades. This tool is essential for creating soft blends, masked edges, overlay effects, image reveals, and layered compositions without needing a separate mask.