Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Figure 8-20 .

•

Go to the Transparency panel and click the

opacity mask thumbnail, the one that looks like

a black head against a white background.

•

Choose Edit→Paste in Place or press the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (-Shift-V). Illustrator adds

the blue path to the opacity mask.

The blue path diffuses Sam’s stumpy legs but does not

entirely erase them. When rendered within an opac-

ity mask, a colored path can hide elements of your

illustration on an ink-by-ink basis, but that’s not what

we’re looking for. We want to clip the pants entirely

under the piano. Which requires black.

18. Fill the blue path with black. On the far left side of

the control panel, select black for the fi ll color and

none

(

)

for the stroke. Illustrator now clips the pants

and the bottom of the suit to the left edge of the blue

keyboard, as shown in Figure 8-20.

19.

Rename the new masking path. Note that Illustrator

has renamed the Layers panel Layers (Opacity Mask)

and it contains just one item, <Opacity Mask>. Twirl

this item open to reveal two paths, one for the piano

and the other for Sam’s head. Double-click the item

called <Path> and rename it “piano.”

20.

Exit the opacity mask. Try clicking part of the jacket

and note that Illustrator refuses to select it. This is

because editing an opacity mask amounts to a kind

of isolation mode. You can select the head and the

piano—the two paths in the