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Dan Rodney/2 min read

Fill Opacity & Effects

Common Photoshop Tools

Brush Tool

Paint with custom brushes, opacity, and flow control.

Clone Stamp

Sample one area and paint it elsewhere — perfect for repairs.

Healing Brush

Smarter than clone — blends texture and tone of the source.

Pen Tool

Create precise vector paths for selections or shapes.

Master Photoshop at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Photoshop Bootcamp covers retouching, compositing, color correction, and pro editing.

Dive into this comprehensive Photoshop tutorial where you'll learn to control the opacity & fill of a layer's contents and effects to create dynamic results.

Topics Covered in This Photoshop Tutorial:

More Practice with Layer Effects, Layer Opacity Vs. Fill

Exercise Preview

bryant park chrysler bldg done

Photo by Dan Rodney

Exercise Overview

The opacity of a layer’s contents and effects can be controlled separately to create dynamic results. Let’s see how in this graphic for Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Setting up the Type Layer

  1. From the Photoshop Class folder, open the file nyc at night.jpg.

  2. At the bottom of the Tools panel, click on the Foreground color swatch.

    foreground color swatch

  3. In the color picker that appears, choose white and click OK.

  4. Choose the Horizontal Type tool type tool.

  5. In the Options bar at the top of the screen, set the text formatting to Myriad Pro Bold and 135 pt.

  6. Click in the center of the image.

  7. Type: SNL

  8. Choose the Move tool move tool.

  9. Position the text in the lower-left corner so the Chrysler Building sits between the S and N.

Adding Effects & Adjusting Layer Fill

  1. At the bottom of the Layers panel, click the Add a layer style button adjustment layer fx and from the menu, choose Outer Glow.​

  2. Set the following:

    Spread: 6%
    Size: 50 px

  3. Click OK.

  4. Near the top right of the Layers panel, adjust the Fill (%) of the layer. Try 15% first. Then just experiment.

    TIP: When the mouse is over the word Fill, it will turn into a hand slider hand slider. Click and drag left or right to quickly adjust the value.

  5. Notice how the white text fill is partially transparent, but the effect wasn’t altered? When you are satisfied, File > Save As a Photoshop document. Name the file yourname-nyc at night.psd

Fill Vs. Opacity

While Fill and Opacity are similar, think of them this way:

Opacity: Affects transparency of layer contents AND effects
Fill: Affects transparency of layer contents, NOT effects