title: Does iText honors color transparency?
body: <p>I'm using iText 5.2.1 and I tried to use the BaseColor constructor with alpha channel, that is</p>
  
  <pre><code>public BaseColor(final int red, final int green, final int blue, final int alpha)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but when I actually draw text or shapes it seems that the alpha channel isn't taken into account.
  For example if I try this</p>
  
  <pre><code>  Font f = ....;
    f.setColor(new BaseColor(130, 130, 130, 50);
    PdfContentByte cb = writer.getDirectContent();
    ColumnText.showTextAligned(cb, Element.ALIGN_LEFT, new Phrase("my text", f),
        refPointX, refPointY, 0);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>the text it's written with the color specified but without the alpha information, that is with the color with 100% opacity.
  The same thing happens if I try to draw some shape and I specify a fill color with transparency.</p>
  
  <p>In the book <em>iText in Action second edition</em> there's nothing about transparency in colors.</p>
  
  <p>Am I wrong?</p>