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Using opacity masks to mask gradients or highlights inside of shapes and text.

Quick reference

Opacity Masks

Using opacity masks to mask gradients or highlights inside of shapes and text.

When to use

If you wanted to add a gradient or a highlight inside of text or another shape, an Opacity Mask would be the ideal choice. 

Instructions

  • Begin by opening the Opacity Masks - Exercise.ai file
  • Use your Selection Tool (V) to select the first line of text that says 'Highlight' and then press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it.
  • Hold down the Shift Key and select the gradient behind the text so that both objects are selected together.
  • Open the Transparency Panel from the right side of the interface and select 'Make Mask' from the dialog box.
  • Initially, both your text and the gradient will most likely disappear, so all you will see is a bounding box of a shape.
  • You will need to check off the box that says 'Invert Mask' in order to reveal the gradient inside of the bottom portion of the text.
  • Next, press Command/Ctrl+F on the keyboard to paste a copy of your original black text in front.
  • Go to the Object Menu and choose Arrange>Send Backward, or press Command/Ctrl and the left bracket until your masked gradient is in front of the black text.
  • At any point you can release the mask by going back to the Transparency Panel and selecting 'Release' from the dialog box.
  • You can also modify the gradient being used in the mask by first selecting it with the Direct Selection Tool, and then opening the Gradient Panel from the right side of the interface. 

Hints

  • Once an opacity mask is applied, you can use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to modify the shape or contents of either the mask or the object being masked similarly to when we use a Clipping Mask as shown in the previous lesson.
  • You can also click on the small link icon between the shape and the mask to unlink them from one another. This allows you to move the mask or the shape that you want to mask independently of one another. 
  • Remember that if you can't see the results of your opacity mask that you may need to check off the 'Invert' option from the Transparency Panel.
  • Much like Clipping Masks, the object that you want to use as a mask must be placed on top of the object or shape that you want to hide. If you are having trouble bringing an object to the front, you can go to the Object Menu and choose Arrange>Bring to Front.
  • If you are placing a gradient or highlight inside of another shape, you can also change the Blending Mode from the Transparency Panel. 
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  • 00:04 Now that you guys have seen the way that clipping masks work in Adobe Illustrator,
  • 00:08 there's one other type of mask that I would like to show you guys.
  • 00:11 And the first thing I'm going to do is just create some text once again,
  • 00:17 and I'm just gonna make it a bit larger,
  • 00:18 using the keyboard shortcut Cmd+Shift+the right caret.
  • 00:23 Now once I do that, I can select my text, come over here to my character panel,
  • 00:28 and let's change the style from Regular to Bold.
  • 00:32 I may need to extend my text box a little bit just to make sure that that fits on
  • 00:36 one line.
  • 00:36 And then I'm going to press Cmd+Shift+O on the keyboard to convert it to outlines.
  • 00:43 Now, I could use this text as a mask itself, as we saw in the previous lesson.
  • 00:47 But I'm actually gonna it one step further and
  • 00:50 show you guys how to do something a little bit different, using an opacity mask.
  • 00:55 So I'm gonna create a rectangle on top of my text.
  • 00:58 And for the fill color, let's go ahead and choose a gradient.
  • 01:02 Now, over here in the Gradient panel, we wanna have a linear gradient, and
  • 01:05 we're gonna change a few of these options.
  • 01:08 So on the left, we wanna make sure that we have white set to 100%.
  • 01:11 And then all the way here on the right side, I'm going to double-click it and
  • 01:16 make that white as well.
  • 01:18 The difference is that on this slider, I'm going to change the opacity to 0.
  • 01:22 So you can see that we now have a gradient that goes from 100% white to 0% white.
  • 01:27 And if I select it once again, I can change the angle to let's say -90 degrees.
  • 01:34 Okay, so it kinda starts in the center of the text here, and
  • 01:39 we want it to go from about the middle down.
  • 01:43 And now am going to create another rectangle behind this,
  • 01:46 okay, and I'm gonna double-click on this fill color.
  • 01:50 Maybe just make it a shade of blue, okay?
  • 01:52 And then I'm going to come over here, and I wanna make sure that it's a solid color.
  • 01:58 So I'm gonna select the Color fill, and then we'll come up to the Object menu and
  • 02:02 choose Arrange > Send to Back.
  • 02:04 Now, when I do that, I can select this shape and lock it by pressing Cmd+2.
  • 02:09 And now you'll see that I have this gradient on top of my text.
  • 02:13 But what happens if I just want this gradient to be inside of the text and
  • 02:17 not on the outside?
  • 02:18 Well, the first thing I'm going to need to do is select my text and
  • 02:21 actually bring this in front of the gradient.
  • 02:24 So to do that, I can either press Cmd+Shift+the right bracket.
  • 02:29 Or I can come up to the Object menu and choose Arrange > Bring to Front.
  • 02:33 Either way is fine.
  • 02:35 Okay, but once I do that, I'm gonna select my text, and hold down the Shift key,
  • 02:39 and click on the gradient behind it.
  • 02:42 Then from there,
  • 02:43 I wanna select the Transparency tab from over here in my panels.
  • 02:47 And now you´ll see I have this option called Make Mask.
  • 02:50 So if I click that, it looks like nothing has happened, but
  • 02:54 as soon as I click the Invert Mask option,
  • 02:56 you´ll see that it´s now just placing that gradient inside of my text.
  • 03:01 But now I kinda lost the top of my text, so how can I get that back?
  • 03:06 Well, I can press Cmd+C to copy this, and
  • 03:09 then Cmd+F to paste it in front, and now I can choose Release.
  • 03:14 Okay, and at this point I can actually delete this gradient, select my text, and
  • 03:19 then just move it back behind the other copy.
  • 03:22 So the keyboard command that I'm using to do that is by selecting my text first, and
  • 03:27 then pressing Cmd+the left bracket.
  • 03:30 Okay, but this is basically just a way to create a copy of the highlight on top.
  • 03:37 So let's try another example of this here.
  • 03:40 Where let's say that I had some text that I wanted to use,
  • 03:46 and then I'll create another gradient.
  • 03:47 This time I'm gonna create a large circle, and I'll create a radial gradient.
  • 03:54 Okay? And then I'm going to stretch it
  • 03:56 a little bit to make it more of an ellipse.
  • 03:59 I'm just going to squash it down a bit, like that.
  • 04:03 Okay, and let's say that I wanted to have the gradient start from down here.
  • 04:07 I'm gonna press G on the keyboard to get my Gradient tool, and then click from
  • 04:11 the bottom and drag upwards, so that it kinda creates this edge here.
  • 04:16 Then I'm going to create another rectangle to place behind my text and my gradient.
  • 04:21 Send it to the back.
  • 04:23 And I'm gonna choose a solid fill color, this time we'll use maybe a green.
  • 04:28 Okay, so again, you can see where the gradient is, and
  • 04:30 you can see where the text is.
  • 04:33 So I'm going to go to Object > Arrange > Bring to Front, and
  • 04:37 now my text is on top of the gradient.
  • 04:40 So I can select the text, hold down Shift and select the gradient,
  • 04:43 and then come over here choose Make Mask, and Invert Mask.
  • 04:50 And then if I wanna get my regular text back,
  • 04:53 I would choose Cmd+C to copy it, Cmd+F to paste in front, and
  • 04:57 then release the mask from this copy and delete the gradient.
  • 05:01 And now all I'd have to do is select my text and
  • 05:03 press Cmd or Ctrl+the left bracket to move it behind.
  • 05:07 Now, once I have this opacity mask, I can actually unlink these, and
  • 05:12 that will allow me to move these things around independently of one another.
  • 05:16 So that way I can just move around the highlight and
  • 05:18 change the placement of it without having to go through that whole process again.
  • 05:22 But if I wanted to unclip it, I can just do that easily by unchecking this box, and
  • 05:28 the Invert Mask, we'll basically just turn it off.
  • 05:31 So those are a few of the different ways that you can use opacity mask, and this is
  • 05:35 a great way to add a lot of variety and some sheen to some text or other shapes.
  • 05:41 And if I wanted to make this a color, for example,
  • 05:44 instead of black or white, I could make this a color gradient,
  • 05:47 and I would just wanna make sure that it fades at the end.
  • 05:50 So you could have a fade from one color to another, but ideally,
  • 05:55 you wanna have one side that's 100% and another side that is 0.
  • 06:01 So if I grab my text over here, and I double-click to change the color.
  • 06:05 Let's just go ahead and make it like a dark brownish, orange color.
  • 06:09 And now I select my gradient on top.
  • 06:11 What I can do to even push this further is come over to my transparency, and
  • 06:15 I can also change the blending mode.
  • 06:17 If I wanted to try something like Screen or Color Dodge, or
  • 06:20 Overlay, you can see what that looks like on top of your text.
  • 06:25 So there's a lot of variety for the things that you can do using opacity masks and
  • 06:29 playing around with the transparency and the blending modes in Adobe Illustrator.

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