AlphaComposites: Which Does What?

It seems like every 4 months or so I come across a particular problem that I want to solve using AlphaComposites. The problem is I'm a very visual person; the equations listed in the javadocs don't help me visualize what each composite actually looks like.

Here is an applet that demonstrates most of the possible variables at play:

This applet (source included) is available here.

Also there are several AlphaComposite types where it makes a huge difference whether you're rendering images vs shapes. In this applet if "Use Images" is selected then the shapes you see are first rendered in a BufferedImage, and then those images are rendered together.

That's all. This is a clean, short article -- as much for my benefit as anyone else's.