Set opacity of background image without affecting child elements

Question

Is it possible to set the opacity of a background image without affecting the opacity of child elements?

Example

All links in the footer need a custom bull

Answer 1

You can put the image in the div:after or div:before and set the opacity on that "virtual div"

div:after {
  background: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/owl1.jpg);
  opacity: 0.25;
}

found here http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/transparent-background-images/