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Masking

You can use masking to hide parts of the contents of your layers. Every layer has a mask, which is a kind of sub-layer. The contents of this mask layer act like a stencil, blocking parts of the actual layer's contents from being seen. Masks can contain of pixels and vectors and partial transparency just like normal layers. To edit the mask of a layer instead of its contents, select the Edit Mask checkbox in the Layers Inspector.

There are four different ways a mask can be interpreted. You can choose how to interpret the mask in the Masks popup just after the Edit Mask checkbox. The Opaque Masks option will use anything opaque to mask the layer's contents. The Transparent Masks option will use anything transparent to mask the layer's contents (exactly the opposite of the Opaque Masks option). The White Masks option will use anything white (and opaque) to mask the layer's contents. The Black Masks option will use anything black (and opaque) to mask the layer's contents- this is not the opposite of the White Masks option.

Note: If you are exporting your image as a PDF image, some vectors in masks will be converted into pixels in the image (limiting its resolution independence). The only vectors that will not be converted into pixels are rectangles, ellipses, polygons, and pen vectors with an opaque fill and no stroke.

Related Topics

Layers