User Guide

Canvas 12 User Guide
Consider a group of three objects whose opacities are 30%, 60%, and 100%. If you set the opacity of
the group object to 50%, the opacities of the individual objects will appear to be 15%, 30%, and 50%
relative to the background. If you ungroup the objects, their opacities will be restored to 30%, 60%,
and 100%.
Controlling the scope of transparency effects
All vector objects have scope settings that control what parts of the objects are affected by
transparency. The scope setting can limit transparency to an object’s fill ink only, or it can apply
transparency to the fill ink and the pen ink on the object’s stroke. The scope setting controls all
transparency effects applied to vector objects, including opacity, channel masks, vector masks, and
transfer modes. Each vector object has a scope setting. Scope settings do not affect text objects,
paint objects, or group objects. You can change the scope setting of a selected vector object by
using the Scope controls in the Properties bar or the Transparency palette (see "Using the
Transparency palette" on page 666).
The scope setting can affect the time needed to print an object. When an object has a reduced
opacity setting (but no other transparency effects) and the scope is Fill, Canvas can print the object
on PostScript printers without rendering. If the scope is Fill & Stroke, Canvas renders the object and
prints it as an image. An image usually contains more data than a vector object, so this can increase
the time required to print an object.
Fill Fill & Stroke
670