Clipping Mask In Adobe Illustrator

If you ever need to create a clipping mask or clipping path in Adobe Illustrator, this is how you do it.

First, place the image you want to mask into your Illustrator document (File-Place…)

After you’ve placed the image into the document, draw a path around the image you want to mask.

When you’re done drawing a path around the image you want to mask, select both the image and the path and make the path a clipping mask (Object-Clipping Mask-Make)

You’re image should now have a clipping mask.

Here are some important things to remember when creating a clipping mask in Illustrator:

The path you’ve drawn should always be above the image when creating the clipping mask.

Make sure the path is as tight as possible to the image to be masked.

If possible, create a bleed around your image in Photoshop so that there is no background

showing when you create the clipping mask.

You can also mask multiple images and objects in your layout  by selecting all of the items (including the path you’ve created) and create a clipping mask.