Illustrator document has persistent transparency

[wgullo]

I've created an infographic that contains a custom bar chart, not many layer or sublayers yet and am pleased with how things are progressing.

For the background, I Placed a jpg of a sheet of watercolor paper that has some soft texture, and it is located on the bottom-most layer, then adjusted to 25% opacity, no blend mode.

Now, whatever shape or line I subsequently create has the same transparency as the watercolor paper... even though all the opacity settings for every element in every layer and sub-layer is set to 100% opacity. No blend modes.

Oddly enough, once I remove the watercolor layer and begin drawing again, all shapes and strokes have normal transparency.

I can adjust the brightness of the watercolor paper in PS then Place again in Ilustrator.  How can an element in the bottom layer affect transparency in the upper layers?  I'm stumped. 

*attached is an example that illustrates the problem. 

[Monika Gause]

Please select the object and show a screenshot that contains the appearance and the layers panel.

[wgullo]

how is this...

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

Can you select the object that shows the transparency and show the Layers panel and the Appearance Panel?

If the layer has a filled dot to the right, check the Appearance panel, double click the Layer item at the top for Opacity effects.

You can select Clear Appearance from the the Appearance panel menu.

[wgullo]

here you go... 

[Ton Frederiks]

Can you show your first example with the green circle selected and show the Layers panel and the Appearance Panel?

[wgullo · Accepted solution]

Clear Appearances did the trick. Wow. I presumed because the transparency settings were normal for all elements and for the Placed jpg, that there wasn't anything unusual about the watercolor jpg. But, this particular jpg gets a lot of use in my AI work, so somewhere along the way a gremlin crept in.

Lesson learned, and I will Clear Appearances sooner in the troubleshooting process from now on. 🙂 

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that worked. Yes appearances can also be applied to entire layers and everything on that layer will show the appearance.