The Book of Inkscape

10.7 Gradient Tips and Examples

If you want to “fade out” or “feather” the edge of an object, you don’t have to (indeed, often you can’t) apply a color-to-transparent gradient to it. One way to address this need is by using a mask (18.4 Clipping and Masking); however, in many cases, if the background under the object is a solid color, an overlay object—a shader—of the same color as the background with opaque-to-transparent gradient would be easier to create and maintain. This method works equally well for multiple objects that need to be feathered as a group, for feathering more than one side, for objects that already have different gradient fills, or for bitmaps or pattern-filled objects.

In this example, four gradient shaders are put over the ...