Gradient Transparencies

[surcules]

Is there a way to make one of these in illustrator 9?
What i mean is
I want to make a raster(pic) transparent or adjust the opaqueness on just one side, like a gradient fill dark(pic image) to Light(image fades out transparent)

Coreldraw has a nifty little transparent tool for this but i'm having problems in Illustrator. I can only adjust the opaqe on the whole picture, but i want it to fade out from left to right or up to down.
Anyone?
Please, i'm ripping my hair out.

 

[dimoj]

Hello.

Do you already know how to create a black to white gradient fill? If so then just make a rectangle (or any shape) with a b>w gradient fill that covers your raster image (ie the gradient shape is above the raster in the layer stack). Make sure both objects are selected. Open your transparency palette. There is a drop down menu in the top right of that window. Open that and select MAKE OPACITY MASK. That should be it.