Includegraphics: set image opacity

Question

I'd like to insert a PDF, but make it "lighter" by setting the opacity to 10% ("background watermark"). How to do that? A solution that works with texlive 2011 would be great.

I use pdflatex and includegraphics to insert the image.

I suggest you to take a look at PGF/Tikz http://mirrors.ctan.org/graphics/pgf/base/doc/generic/pgf/pgfmanual.pdf (search Referencing the Current Page Node - Absolute Positioning) — Lionel MANSUY, Dec 11 '12 at 08:35
I hope there is a solution without loading the whole tikz-pgf bundle into my tiny document... — topskip, Dec 11 '12 at 08:37
@topskip Certainly possible, all you have to do is use TikZ for a demo, \tracingall the resulting output and see what specials to use :-) — Joseph Wright, Dec 11 '12 at 08:40
@JosephWright I guess my harddrive is too small for the resulting log file :) — topskip, Dec 11 '12 at 08:47

Jake · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-11T09:29:09.680

80

You could use the transparent package to set the opacity of your background image:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{transparent}
\usepackage{eso-pic}
\AddToShipoutPicture*{
    \put(0,0){
        \parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
            \vfill
            \centering
            {\transparent{0.4}\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{drawing}}%
            \vfill
        }
    }
}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

In case the transparency doesn't work with your image for some reason, you could instead put a semi-transparent white box over your image:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{transparent}
\usepackage{eso-pic}
\AddToShipoutPicture*{
    \put(0,0){
        \parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
            \vfill
            \centering
            \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{drawing}%
            \vfill
        }
    }
    \put(0,0){%
        \transparent{0.7}\textcolor{white}{\rule{\paperwidth}{\paperheight}}
    }
}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

edited Dec 11 '12 at 09:29

answered Dec 11 '12 at 08:55

Jake

232,450

2

First tests show that this works for some images only. "My" image of course does not work ... – topskip Dec 11 '12 at 09:19
1

@topskip: Oh, that's interesting. Have you made sure to compile the document twice? – Jake Dec 11 '12 at 09:25
4

@topskip: Workaround: Put a semi-transparent white rectangle above the image but below the text. See my edit. – Jake Dec 11 '12 at 09:29
5

Sadly does not work with beamer – Jay Feb 28 '17 at 12:36
Probably obvious, but: larger values for transparent mean more transparent. – Chernoff Feb 23 '21 at 03:11
1

Undefined control sequence. Using Xelatex. l.4 {\transparent – Jonathan Prieto-Cubides Oct 04 '22 at 11:35
@Jay it works with beamer, but doesn't seem to work with XeLatex – robertspierre Apr 04 '23 at 04:13

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 04 '23 at 04:42

1

To use transparent with XeLaTeX, insert

\RequirePackage{pdfmanagement-testphase}
\DeclareDocumentMetadata{}

at the very beginning of the document (before \documentclass).

See this issue for more details.

answered Apr 04 '23 at 04:42

robertspierre

638
3
16

Includegraphics: set image opacity

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