Keynote Alpha Tool

August 22, 2009 in General, Mac by Angelina Roberts

Last year I wrote a quick guide on the Alpha tool that first featured in the great iWork 08 release. The tutorial remains popular and there appears to be a stack of people searching for a guide on how to use the tool via Google.

This Screencast introduces not only my first ever screencast with a voiceover but a quick guide on how easy the Alpha tool is to use.

The Alpha tool is very simple to use :

To remove unwanted elements:

Select the image.
1. Click Alpha in the toolbar (or choose Format > Instant Alpha).
2. Click the color you want to make transparent, and then drag slowly over it.
3. As you drag, the selection grows to include the contiguous area that uses similar colors. You can control how much of the image is selected by dragging less or more.
Repeat these steps as many times as is required.

Better still the shadow tool now works perfectly on your new cut out shape. The Alpha tool is very easy to use and my advice is to drag the wheel slowly at first and experiment with the amount of colour being removed.

The text version of this guide is available here.