#553 – Setting an Alpha Value in Blend

Colors in WPF consist of 8 bytes–2 bytes each for the alpha, red, green and blue channels.  The alpha channel dictates the transparency/opacity of a color (255 or #FF = fully opaque, 0 = fully transparent).

You can set the alpha value for a color in the color editor in Blend by setting the value of the field labeled A (0-100%) or by explicitly setting the first two bytes of the hex value for the color (#00-#FF).

In the example below, the Alpha value is at 100%, or #FF, indicating that the color is fully opaque.

If you set the Alpha value to 50%, you’ll see that the first two bytes in the color value are now #7F (127).

In the example below, we’ve set the the Foreground color of the label to Black, with an alpha value of 50% so that we can see through the label to the GUI behind it.