Token making question

How would one make a partially transparent token...for ghosts and such?

I use Photoshop and turn down the opacity on the layer. I'm not sure what editing program you would use, but I think "opacity" would be the option you're looking for pretty universally. On the few 'ghost' tokens I have up for sale I usually give them a tint too, turning opacity down to about 70% and then changing the hue to blue, green, red, or purple. I have a few yellows too.

thanks that was super helpful..now i can make my own versions of astral constructs

Make sure to save them as PNG (not Jpeg) to export the transparency.

To get the tint without damaging the token, you can set a clipping mask layer mode 'color' or 'hue' and fill it with your desired tint, or you can make an 'adjustment layer' set to hue. If you want the token to be transparent while using a frame to match other tokens, you can put a background of white, black, or any other neutral ghosty color (greys, blues, green, purple at a modest saturation) and then make your token layer transparent over top of that. :)

In case you don't have access to Photoshop, I use GIMP which has many of the same capabilities and is free.

Tiffany M. said: To get the tint without damaging the token, you can set a clipping mask layer mode 'color' or 'hue' and fill it with your desired tint, or you can make an 'adjustment layer' set to hue. If you want the token to be transparent while using a frame to match other tokens, you can put a background of white, black, or any other neutral ghosty color (greys, blues, green, purple at a modest saturation) and then make your token layer transparent over top of that. :) You can also just work on a copy of the token. They are small files.

Another term you might run into is "the Alpha channel".  That means the same thing as Opactiy or Transparency or Transparent Pixels or Semi-transparent.  Some programs you'll need to Export or Save As.... PNG, with the setting "preserve opacity / alpha / transparency" turned on.

keithcurtis said: Tiffany M. said: To get the tint without damaging the token, you can set a clipping mask layer mode 'color' or 'hue' and fill it with your desired tint, or you can make an 'adjustment layer' set to hue. If you want the token to be transparent while using a frame to match other tokens, you can put a background of white, black, or any other neutral ghosty color (greys, blues, green, purple at a modest saturation) and then make your token layer transparent over top of that. :) You can also just work on a copy of the token. They are small files, If you do it my way, you now have a layer stack you can apply to ANY token you want to be a ghost, and can switch the token out for any other token and just save it. Yet another benefit of non-destructive editing techniques.

True. I hadn't considered multiple tokens. Yeah, in PS, I'd go with a layer style.

I'm not saying much others haven't, but I figured I'd add a bit more detail, just to help you avoid certain issues if you're unfamiliar with Photoshop and Gimp. Firstly, as others have said, you can turn down the opacity. You can either do this by erasing without full opacity, or in the layers menu. If you do it with the eraser, you can make it more opaque vs transparent selectively. For example, you can make the hair less visible than the skin. This can create pretty cool effects. You can even do "fade-out" effects around the edges for an extra ghostly look. Remember to erase the background or make it non-visible in the finished product and save the image as a PNG. If you're using Photoshop, Gaussian Blur (Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur) can create interesting ghostly effects as well. If you want to further edit it and keep your layers and changes intact, I'd recommend saving it in the original Photoshop/Gimp document as well. Have fun!