How to Adjust Opacity in Adobe Photoshop

Increase or decrease the opacity of an image, text, or other object on your PC or Mac

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: May 8, 2024 Tested

This wikiHow article will teach you how to adjust the opacity of layers in Adobe Photoshop. Changing the opacity of a layer allows you to see or obscure images in the layer(s) below it.

Things You Should Know

You can a layer more transparent or opaque using the Opacity slider.
To find the opacity slider, click the layer in the Layers panel, then click the down-arrow next to "Opacity."
Drag the arrow left to decrease opacity, and right to increase it.

Steps

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Do so by pressing CTRL+O (Windows) or ⌘ +O (Mac), selecting the image file you wish to open, and then clicking Open in the lower-right corner of the dialog box.
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Display the Layers panel (if not visible). If you don't see the Layers panel, follow these quick steps:
- Click the Window menu at the top of the screen.
- Click Layers to show the panel.
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You should now see the Layers panel on the right side of the screen. If the tab isn't active, click the Layers tab to display it.
Each layer is listed with a thumbnail in the lower part of the "Layers" menu window.
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Click the down-arrow 🔽. This icon is to the right of the percentage next to Opacity near the top of the "Layers" menu. A slider will appear below.
- If the Opacity options are grayed out and you cannot click on them, you may need to first unlock the layer you have selected. If a layer is locked there will be a padlock icon to the right of the layer name. To unlock the layer, simply click the padlock icon.
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Drag the slider arrow to set the opacity of the layer. Drag the arrow to the left to make the layer more transparent (lower percentage) or to the right to make it more opaque (higher percentage).
- If a padlock icon appears in a layer, it's locked or partially-locked. In this case, double-click on the layer, and set the opacity percentage in the dialog box that pops up.

Community Q&A

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Question

What does reducing the opacity of a layer in a Photoshop image do?

Elissa Schwartz

Community Answer

Opacity refers to how dense a layer is. If it is at 100% opacity, you can't see through it at all. The lower the opacity, the more you will be able to see through the layer.

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Tips

If you do want to use trial-and-error, you can manually type a number in the box which contains the opacity %, as this will also change the opacity.

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Photoshop will change the opacity on-the-fly, which means that you will be able to observe the opacity as you change the sliding scale instead of using trial-and-error.

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