Overlapping transparent circles with ellipse tool problem

[TurnipPally]

Firstly, great forums. They've helped me a lot.

I am trying to make an image with overlapping circles. What I'd like to do is where the two circles overlap have that little strip be a lighter color. What I get when I do it is a darker color.

This is an example of what I want it to look like:

(Not my creation)

This is an example of what I get:

I've tried all sorts of variations of layers, setting the opacity of a layer differently, Adjustment->transparency settings.

I've been using the ellipse tool, sometimes copy/pasting, sometimes drawing new. I've shift, alt, ctrl left ,and right clicked in all sorts of combos.

To get the above image, I used the ellipse tool right over the background, set on invert, left click only. Then I adjust the transparency to -10 and I think I'm ignoring transparent pixels (although I have clicked and unclicked it in my various trials). I drew each circle individually.

I've searched the forums through the tutorials, various keywords, and google. I am either missing it or it can't be done.

So, what am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?

[APShredder]

I think you're over thinking this just a bit. Try this:

1) Open a new image and set the background color to something other than white.

2) Set your primary color to white and change the alpha value to something relatively low (less than 127 should be good).

3) Use the Ellipse tool with the 'Draw Filled Shape' option selected to draw the ellipses.

4) Overlap the ellipses as desired.

Hope this helps.

[TurnipPally]

Yay! Thank you. It is now doing what I want it to do and MUCH easier than the crazy steps i was taking.

[APShredder]

Glad I was able to help.