I am starting an activity and would rather have a alpha fade-in for startActivity(), and a fade-out for the finish(). How can I go about this in th
startActivity()
finish()
See themes on android: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/themes.html.
Under themes.xml there should be android:windowAnimationStyle where you can see the declaration of the style in styles.xml.
android:windowAnimationStyle
Example implementation: