Hi all,

I'm creating a logo for my wife's business and I've used a free stock image as a background. This image has hard edges so I overlaid a few shapes with a gradient from transparent to white to 'blur' the edges of the image. But I overlooked the fact that the canvas is white, so when I place the logo on a non-white background, I get the hard edges from my overlaid shapes again... Can someone please help me with a solution for this?

Seems the stock image has no alpha channel? Turn on "Checkerboard" in Document properties to check.

I'd approach this in three major steps.

1. Create a masking object with a  gradient from white to black.
2. Use the gradient rectangle to mask the image.
3. Make a bitmap copy of the masked object, to help with export to PDF.

Mask object:

A rectangle filled with a centered, mirrored gradient

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Attributes-Fill-Stroke.html#Attributes-Gradients

Setting the mask:

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Clip-Masking.html

Making a bitmap copy of the masked object:

Exporting to pdf is the most reliable method to get professional printing results.  However, masks interfere with export to pdf in Inkscape.

Making a bitmap copy of the masked object will retain its transparency and allow export to pdf without issue.

Thanks everyone!

I was a bit too early in posting this as I found a very similar solution myself already. Thanks for the detailed explanation nonetheless! Works fine!

Regards,
Jasper