Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking
You may or may or may not know/use this Illustrator feature, but Layer Masking is a very under-used feature of the Adobe Illustrator series of software. I’m not talking about making a clipping mask. This is entirely different altogether. By making a “layer mask,” you can save precious time by not having to release and reapply clipping masks, and even better – there’s a toggle button in the Layers Palette! Tutorial below.
Like I said before, this is a very under-used feature, so it’s been around for a while. I know for a fact that Layer masking is available in CS1+ but anything earlier, I’m not sure. (hopefully you all can help us out with that in the comments)
Overview:
By creating a path on the very top-most sublayer of each Layer, you can use that path as a mask by toggling the Mask Button in the Layers Pallete. If you hit the masking button without having your desired path on the top, Illustrator will automatically use whatever path is in the top-most sublayer (or shape layer). So it’s very important to make sure the shape you wish to use as a mask is on top of everything else in that layer. Using Layer Masks will save you time by avoiding tedious un-grouping, grouping, releasing, and applying clipping masks with the ease of a simple toggle button. Attention the hierarchy of your layers and sub/shape layers is essential in order to get the most out of this feature, but once you get the hang of it, it should definitely speed up your work flow! You can create a unique layer mask for each and every layer in your Illustrator document.
Let’s dive right in:
First, open Illustrator, make a new file, then create a bunch of random shapes on the artboard.
Create a shape to use as your mask
I often find that a layer mask that matches my artboard can come in really handy. So I’ll be using that as an example. My artboard, in this case, is 468 X 350 pixels. To create a mask you can use a variety of tools (any tool that creates a path). In my case I’ll be using the Rectangle tool. In order to easily make a rectangle at the exact size of your artboard, simply click once on the artboard without dragging. You will then be able to type in the exact dimensions. Click OK and you will have your rectangle path. (fill and stroke don’t matter)
Align your mask to the artboard
Now that you have your rectangle, you probably want to align it perfectly to the artboard. You can do this easily with the Align palette. (Window > Align) With your shape selected, align it horizontally and vertically to the artboard by clicking on these two buttons in the Align palette: (make sure that “Align to Artboard” is enabled).
Your shape should now look something like this:
Apply Your Mask
If you haven’t already, make sure your path is the top-most path in your layer. [edit: Select the LAYER, not the path,] then click on the Mask toggle button in your Layers palette.
Done!
With a single click in the Layers palette, you can now toggle the visiblity of everything in that layer! You just have to make sure that your desired masking path REMAINS ON TOP or “FRONT” of that layer.
Advantages:
Now that you’ve mastered the art of layer masking, use it to your advantage. You can freely move and modify all of your shapes in the layer without releasing the layer mask! This not only saves a lot of time, but gives you a better visualization of what a finished and/or “cropped” file will look like but with much more workflow freedom than applying individual clipping masks to groups of shapes. You can always toggle the layer mask off with a single click if you need to see everything.
Quick Tip: I like to “lock” my layer mask in the layers palette so I can’t ever select or move it’s position.
Thanks for the great insight on this feature. I have never used it, but can see how it would help me in a ton of different applications. I have lurked around this site and it is great – keep it coming!
Nice, very useful ..
you should’ve told us about it long time ago !
Wow, that is a great tip. There seems to be lots of features in Illustrator that are sort of tucked away but have lots of depth functionally. e.g. Pathfinder, Layer Mask, Kuler, etc.
Great tip.
Sounds great — will give it a go after this. However, can you make the page print-friendly. I definitely would like to keep this in my file so that I can refer to it (I am pretty forgetful).
Tks again.
Eileen
What a great tip! I never knew this one and it surely is a timesaver! Keep up the great content.
Great tip, layer masking is a truly awesome Illustrator feature.
Coghill Cartooning
[...] excellent Illustrator blog BittBox has a nice Adobe Illustrator Layer Mask tip/walkthough on how to use this highly useful, productivity-enhancing (and fairly obscure) feature of [...]
Damn, why didn’t I know about that feature earlier. Great post! Didn’t know that layer masking was this easy.
This is absolutely awesome, don’t know why I didn’t even care to click on that thingie before! Thanks a bunch, .rob
Great feature, this will come in very useful.
Has anyone had any experience using these Layer Masks for print?
Chris
Again thanx!!
Your blog is just amazing!!
Giac
Good tip. I usually use this when I want to see what a poster or some document will look like without the bleed, but there’s plenty of other applications for it. Just remember to turn it off when you send it to the printer w/ bleeds. =)
Adobe puts out a great set of tutorials called “Classroom in a Book,” that has some really great tips. I learned this one there but it is great to get this out there so more people use it.
Long time lurker, first time commenter. Just wanted to say what a great site you have here! And thanks for the tip with layer masking, I remember being able to do something like this in flash but I didn’t realize illustrator had that option as well. Thanks!
I didn’t know about that. Really cool.
This is truly fantastic. This isn’t mentioned, even in the Illustrator WOW book… I was quite surprised. Thanks for enlightening us yet again, Bittbox!
Thanks mate, that would have saved me alot of time in the past.
I’ll be using it lots in the future. :)
@Chris
For printing, I would turn the mask off, select all, and hit the “crop” button in the pathfinder palette. Since your mask is already on top, pathfinder will use it as the path to cut everything with. That’s it! (if you need a bleed, just scale the mask a bit before cropping)
~Bitt
OK, maybe I am crazy, but it seems to me (from searching adobe help and from tooltips) that this is a clipping mask. When you mouseover that icon, it says “make clipping mask”, and it works exactly like one.
Also, you have to select all the objects you want the mask to mask. Unless my button in that location is different and I can’t find the right feature.
GREAT tip. Thank you. From here is there a quick way to “cut” the artwork to a bleed size when preparing to send it out to a job shop for printing?
Great thing, although I consider myself as at least intermediate ill user, didn’t know it, either ;)
It’d maybe worth mentioning that the object doesn’t need to be selected either when creating layer mask or releasing it. You just click the button, that’s all, folks!
BTW, Jason, you have an exact answer to your question two posts above yours.
So it is!! Thanks Matt.
Kath: This seems no different from a clipping mask (with two exceptions).
One exception is that if you make a clipping mask the other way (using Object > Clipping Mask > Make), all the objects end up in a group.
The other exception is that the usual way requires you to select all the objects to be masked. This way, you don’t need to select all the objects you’d like to mask; just make sure the path is above those you’d like to mask before you click the Make/Release Clipping Mask button.
Great tip! thanks :)
Thanks Bittbox for explaining this :)
Bitbox :
For printing, I would turn the mask off, select all, and hit the “crop” button in the pathfinder palette. Since your mask is already on top, pathfinder will use it as the path to cut everything with. That’s it! (if you need a bleed, just scale the mask a bit before cropping :)
That’s a great tip. I’m forever using clipping paths in Illustrator and I didn’t know that. I’ve been popping by this site from time to time and there is always great stuff here. Thanks!
for any square area i just use crop area from the menu (object > crop area> make/release) can be used without path that is the same dimensions as the art board or any square path
Yes, this is a great feature to use — integral to most AI use. Back before AI took over, I used Freehand for all of my digital illustration work. Their Paste Inside feature was much more easy to use since you could just simply cut and paste objects into any selected shape and continue with that process. If you had multiple objects inside one, you could select any of those objects and cut it out of the object you had it pasted into. This would mimic the masking that is used in AI. In Freehand, construction and deconstruction was made fast with “cut” and “paste inside” keystrokes — and cutting an object out of it’s parent, was never easier.
Now, with AI, you have the great “masking” feature which is cumbersome because of one BIG flaw. If you unmask a “parent” mask, meaning an object is masking other masked objects underneath, it will unmask all masks inside that parent mask — and that sucks, especially when you have like 8 masked objects, masked by one big object. Many people talk about masking their final work, which can prove to be a time killer and lead to a myriad of overlooked mistakes that make it to the printer and/or client review.
In AI, the direct selection tool, allows you to select and edit “child” masks without having to unmask them all. Also, double clicking will open up the selection of any masked or grouped objects, although, if you have ever used this feature, it can be frustrating selecting and double clicking the right set of objects. Also, trying to drag and select and lock/unlock child masks and objects is a nightmare.
The double clicking feature is our savior with this AI software overlook. If anyone knows of a “paste inside” feature, let me know. I’ve bee looking for it since 2002 — ever since the World migrated away from Freehand.
I do not own CS3, however, I have looked around and to my knowledge, AI CS3 still does not have this feature. I always thought that it was Macromedia’s patented software, but now that Adobe has consumed everything in it’s path — I’m wondering when this AMAZING, yet so simple, feature will come back to aid us in our digital illustration explorations.
Sorry to jump on the soap-box with this one. It’s a touchy subject between many old Freehand users and I had to say something. Thanks for reading if your ADD didn’t already kick in.
wow, thanks! it’s so usefull for me…arigatou!, terima kasih!
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I found one thing misleading, and I think a few other posters here have had the same problem: after you’ve made sure your masking path is on top, make sure you have the Layer selected in your layers tab, NOT the topmost object inside the layer. Otherwise the mask button isn’t available. I struggled with this for a few minutes, but its real simple once you get the procedure down.
@Ryan Malm
Thanks for that comment! You’re 100% right. You must select the layer, NOT the path you wish to use as the mask. I apologize for not being more clear on that!
~Bitt
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command 7 is an easy keystroke for masking.
command + option + 7 umasks
you guys should try that — it’s easy.
command 7 creates a regular clipping mask, not the workable Layer Mask described in this tutorial. Good keyboard shortcut, but not the same thing.
Wow, thanks! I’ve looked everywhere for that option!
Bittbox rules ;-)
Cheers!
Henriko
Bitt
Great stuff – just spent the day masking the usual way then stumbled across you blog. Keep it up you are an inspiration to us all
Phill
[...] has produced another great Illustrator tutorial this time on Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking . Using Layer Masks will save you time by avoiding tedious un-grouping, grouping, releasing, and [...]
[...] Tutorial , Illustrator Bittbox has produced another great Illustrator tutorial this time on Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking . Using Layer Masks will save you time by avoiding tedious un-grouping, grouping, releasing, and [...]
This works in Illustrator 10, fyi
@Joel,
That makes me sad that I’ve wasted this feature for so long!
Thanks for the info.
~Bitt
Hmm, doesn’t work for me. Is it a version specific shortcut? I have AI CS.
OMG! i feel like such an idiot after reading this post! wht i used to do was create a white ‘frame’ tht would just abt cover whtever i had outside my artboard and make tht the top most layer and lock it! this is much simpler and faster! thanx for the tip!
Nice tip ! man u are the best
[...] Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking [...]
Wow… I have been looking for a feature like this.. Thanks a lot for your tutorial! I have often wondered why i have to export all the my art and not only the ones on the artboard :-) Thanks!
@ Amira
i was exactly the same!! I always made a border as the top layer and locked it.
__________________
Just wondering if you have to have something already in the layer before you create the layer mask, or can you create it before you start designing?
When reading the post I thought this tool was a godsend. Every time I make a clipping mask it would group everything in a layer taking away the editing capabilities of the layers. I used this and it was great until I released the layer mask. It went ahead and released anything else I had masked within that layer…so that kind of brought me a different set of issues alltogether….
jc
Thanks for the tip.
i agree with cluster about freehand, i’m a paste-inside fan too.
I’m using Ai CS2, have to drag all other layers into the same layer with the masking before it could work.
So simple and so helpful! Just what i was looking for, thanks :D
Thanks a lot! you’re great!
i like this tutorial. yes, it is much easier than clipping mask!
thanks!
[...] Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking | BittBox excellent Illustrator blog BittBox has a nice Adobe Illustrator Layer Mask tip/walkthough on how to use this highly useful, productivity-enhancing (and … [...]
Oh. My. God! You have no idea how long I’ve been making two rectangles inside each other and using the pathfinder ‘exclude overlapping shapes’ for this. Genius! Thank you.
I just did it AI 10 – it works wonderfully and I can’t thank you enough Bitt. Take Care and keep it up!
–
Greg
Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I was drawing a portrait and needed to trim it down (but didn’t want to delete anything, just in case) and this really helped me out.
THANK YOU SO MUCH… saved me TONS of time today! :)
So simple, thanks for the tip.
This is brilliant! Thank you for sharing.
Wow, again this is a really handy tut. This is going to save me a lot of time. Thanks, this site is very good, keep it up.
Jord
Nice Totur
This is a good tutorial, but CLusterPluck is absolutely right: this is ten times easier and more useful in Freehand with the Paste Inside feature. And being able to nest lots of Paste Insides inside of other Paste Insides is so useful. I’ve been told by some folks that CS5 may incorporate some features of Freehand that make it so intuitive and simple, and I hope Paste Inside is one of them. Please.
thanks. is very useful…I really needed this.
It didn’t work for me, sadly. I have NO IDEA what I am doing wrong … after aligning, when I click “apply your mask”, it disappears with leaving everything hanging outside.
I created plain circles of 2 different colors on 2 different layers, created a 350×350 pix rectangle on top of those circles layers but after selecting the rectangle layer and clicking on the mask toggle thingie .. rectangle disappears.
Someone please help!! Thanks ….
Musique.
I was having the same problem and looked it up on other posts. My problem was that the path I was using to create my mask was a grouped path. This confuses illustrator and makes it freak out and axe everything. if your path is made of more than one object, select them and chose:
object/compound path/make
then retry the mask. Worked like a charm for me, and I was pulling my hair out over this for hours, trying to figure out what I had done wrong.
good luck
[...] a non-destructive way to acheive a similar effect, I have a post on “Layer Masking” in Illustrator. It’s not the same as a clipping mask, and It gives the same effect as this tutorial without [...]
This is an awesome feature!! Thanks for sharing!
I have the same problem with musique, have tried to compound path, and doen’t work either.
The shape just disappears, wondering what’s wrong???
Hi Aira,
Not sure what your issue is specifically. It’s been a while since I had my issues with masks that I mentioned above. However, there are quite a few ways to mask something.
Since learning this technique, I’ve learned another (along with the original clipping mask technique that I don’t seem to use very often).
Try this tutorial for another method that seems to have all sorts of edit capabilities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzkeIGrPC2s
The guy who does these tutorials uses this masking technique in a lot of his other illustrator tutorials, so if it doesn’t make sense at first, try a couple of his other tutorials and you should get the hang of it. The ones on making an Iphone icon and making a glass button use the masking technique several times each.
Good luck,
-Joe
Very nice job, thanks!…
THANKS I REALLY APPRECIATE IT!!!!
Thank you sooo much – I used to have to manually put white boxes all around the border and then have to lock them, but this way is soooo much easier! Thank you once more!
Hey, I just wanted to drop a note here thanking you for this little tip. I’ve been wasting so much time making clipping masks. You make them, but before you can edit anything you have to release them. This is going to save so much time it’s crazy.
I’m new to Illustrator. The drawback I think to this method is, if you have many layers, you have to create many mask layers. Why not make just one layer on top. Make four rectangles on that layer with a white (or whatever) fill and a zero stroke. The rectangles border what you want to show. Now just making that 1 layer visible or not will truly in the literal sense of the word “mask” whatever is underneath. I suppose you could make a single compound shape of rectangle within a rectangle and make it even simpler. You could just copy this shape to any different file, and resize it as appropriate
Very new to Illustrator and just trying things out at the moment – for what I need this is ideal – and easy as well! Thanks very much!