There is an opacity control in the layers dialog which is different from the opacity control in the fill and stroke dialog. If you change the opacity for the layer, everything in that layer will change. If you only want to change the opacity for the single selected object, you must use the fill and stroke dialog instead.
There's also an opacity control at the left of the status bar (labelled "O:"). This affects the currently selected objects, but avoids a trip to the Fill & Stroke dialog if that's not already open. You can right-click on it for some quick shortcuts, which is often the fastest way to set things back to full opacity.
There's also an alpha channel on fill and stroke colours. Note that opacity and alpha are not quite the same thing. Opacity is a property of the object, whereas alpha is a property of the selected colour. This is most apparent on objects with both a fill and stroke: opacity will affect both of them, but alpha can be used if you need to set them independently.
Beginners' Questions Opacity Affects All Objects on a Layer
Inkscape.org
I have several objects on the same layer.
When I change the Opacity on a selected object,Β the Opacity on all of the other objects are also changed.
Is there a way to keep this from happening? Or, do I have to put all objects on separate layers?
There is an opacity control in the layers dialog which is different from the opacity control in the fill and stroke dialog. If you change the opacity for the layer, everything in that layer will change. If you only want to change the opacity for the single selected object, you must use the fill and stroke dialog instead.
Thank you! I didn't make the connection between the Fill/Stroke Opacity for a selected object and the Layer Opacity for all objects on that layer.
I've been learning Inkscape via YouTube videos and that difference wasn't clarified.
There's also an opacity control at the left of the status bar (labelled "O:"). This affects the currently selected objects, but avoids a trip to the Fill & Stroke dialog if that's not already open. You can right-click on it for some quick shortcuts, which is often the fastest way to set things back to full opacity.
There's also an alpha channel on fill and stroke colours. Note that opacity and alpha are not quite the same thing. Opacity is a property of the object, whereas alpha is a property of the selected colour. This is most apparent on objects with both a fill and stroke: opacity will affect both of them, but alpha can be used if you need to set them independently.