How to make a clipping mask in Illustrator in 4 Easy Steps

In this article, I will show you How to make a clipping mask in Illustrator using both the long and easy way. If you do not know what a clipping mask is, just skip to the bottom of this article where we explain in detail.

A clipping mask is one of the most important functions you can apply in your daily design workflow.

The best thing is that making a clipping mask in Illustrator is relatively easy and straightforward. If you are a beginner you have probably been doing it by navigating to the menu which might be a little slow and time-consuming.

How to make a clipping mask in illustrator Using Shortcut Keys

  1. Open Illustrator Software
  2. Go to File>Place and then choose the image you want to clip
  3. Draw the shape you want the image clipped
  4. Select both the bottom image and shape
  5. Click Control+7 on PC or Command+7 on MAC

The image at the back will be clipped to the shape of the front image. You can also make a clipping mask in illustrator Using Top Menu. Once you place the image and draw the shape, select both of them then go to Object>Clipping Mask>Make.

What are Clipping Masks And Why Are They Useful

Now that you know how to create a clipping Mask, it is important to understand how you can make it useful in your design process.

Basically, a Clipping mask is a crop of an object based on the object in front of it. You can use clipping Masks to:

  1. Crop images in Illustrator
  2. Remove backgrounds from simple images
  3. Crop images to text designs

How to Crop Images in Illustrator Using Clipping Masks

You can use clipping masks to crop images in Illustrator to different sizes and shapes. In this example, we will crop an image to a circle shape.

Once you open Illustrator, 

  1. Go to File>New and set the page size. 
  2. Go to File>Place and choose the image – Place the image you want to crop on the artboard.
  3. Choose the ellipse tool or any shape you want to use and draw it on the image.
  4. Select both and click Control+7 on PC or Command+7 on Mac.

How to Remove Background in Illustrator Using Clipping Masks

When you place your image on the artboard, you can use your pen tool to draw a shape that cuts out an image to crop out its background. The video below shows how to do it.

Crop images to text designs

You can use clipping masks to create cool text designs that cut out images into legible text. To do this 

  1. Place the image as we did in earlier steps. 
  2. Instead of the shape, go to the type tool and create a text object. 
  3. Copy the text so that we will use it to create an outline after we clip
  4. Select both the text and image then click Control+7 or Command+7
  5. Click Control + F or Command + F on Mac to paste the text we copied. Set to outline instead of fill. Use a thick outline to make it look good.

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