Inspiring

Answered

Seperating a letter within a compound path group and it's underlying image.

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 11, 2018
7 replies
1187 views

Hello,

I was wondering if there is anyway to do this:

I made some text and outlined it.

Created a Compound Path

Then used those letters as a clipping mask on an image.

So, here is the question:

Is there anyway to separate the letters and the image below, if I wanted to just use a few letters, or move the letters around etc?

I have tried to all things in the pathfinder panel and and divide objects below, but cannot get one letter with the image below cut out on its own.

Thank you,

Babs

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer CarlosCanto

...another way.

place outlined text on top of your image, no need to make a compound path

give your outlines 0% opacity

select both, the outlines and the image and Flatten Transparency

ungroup, delete background image, move around letters

iBabs2Author

Inspiring

Thank you Carlos!

Works great!

Babs

iBabs2Author

Inspiring

WOW!!

Thank you everyone!!! This is great! Learned many new things here!

Much Appreciated!

Babs

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

You can try this:

Create Outlines from your text.

Ungroup.

Place your image behind the outlined text and Embed it

Select the text objects and change the opacity to 1%

Select All and choose Object > Flatten Transparency

Ungroup.

You can now delete the picture outside the characters and move the around freely.

iBabs2Author

Inspiring

Thanks Ton Frederiks!!!
All good stuff!! Great work-arounds.!

Best Babs

CarlosCanto

Correct answer

Community Expert

...another way.

place outlined text on top of your image, no need to make a compound path

give your outlines 0% opacity

select both, the outlines and the image and Flatten Transparency

ungroup, delete background image, move around letters

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Carlos was a little faster :-)

tromboniator

Community Expert

And, of course, easier than mine. Oh, well, I'm in rehearsal for two shows, so maybe I lack focus.

tromboniator

Community Expert

Assuming that you have a version of Illustrator with Crop function:

Peter

Myra Ferguson

Community Expert

One way you could do it would be to use Image Trace to convert the photo to vectors (probably with either the High Fidelity Photo or Low Fidelity Photo setting) and Expand. Then select your outlined letters and the background and use Shape Builder to remove all the parts you don't want to keep. Then what's left would be individual filled letters.