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M
Mokshablr
Participant
January 22, 2021
Answered

Is it possible to change all the blacks in the artwork to transparent?

  • January 22, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 1153 views

I am making a design for a tshirt. Since the tshirt is black I wanted to change all the blacks to transparent.

Is there anyway to do this?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Met1

This is destructive, so do a saveAs.

Select All, click on merge in Pathfinder, then Trim in Pathfinder. This should isolate every single path item on your page irrespective of if it was in a group, compound path or clipping mask.

Select All, outline stroke.

Select something black, select same fill, then no fill (or delete).

3 replies

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 9, 2021

What kind of objects are we talking about? Are the blacks just fills or also strokes? Brushes? Are they also in patterns?

 

How will this be produced? What kind of file do you need to deliver?

 

Knockout groups would be very efficient, but it depends on the nature of the artwork and the output.

Met1
Met1Correct answer
Legend
March 9, 2021

This is destructive, so do a saveAs.

Select All, click on merge in Pathfinder, then Trim in Pathfinder. This should isolate every single path item on your page irrespective of if it was in a group, compound path or clipping mask.

Select All, outline stroke.

Select something black, select same fill, then no fill (or delete).

    M
    MokshablrAuthor
    Participant
    March 10, 2021

    Wow!

     

    Thank you so much Met0D4D. I just tried it and it works :D. This is going to save me a lot of time. 

     

    Thanks once again.

    Theresa J
    Community Expert
    Theresa JCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 22, 2021

    It sounds like you need to knock the black colors out of the other colors so that the black tee shirt will show through. To do this you should use the shape builder tool.

      M
      MokshablrAuthor
      Participant
      March 9, 2021

      That's what I have been doing, but it gets tedious for complicated designs. Any Other suggestions?

      Jacob Bugge
      Community Expert
      Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 22, 2021

      Mokshabir,

       

      You can use Select>Same>Fill Color and Select>Same>Stroke Color and change all instances of each kind.

       

      Depending on the printer, there may be a safe way of keeping the appearance of the black, obviously more requiring if it is a rich black.

       

       

        M
        MokshablrAuthor
        Participant
        March 9, 2021

        Thank you  Jacob. This feature is helpful, but the objects below the black objects remain.

         

        If there was a way to remove the object sbelow too, like the shape builder tool does, that I dont know about it would be great if anyone could help. 

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