Help needed to cut interior parts of an image out

[ESE_Carbon]

Hello all, I am having a terrible time figuring out how to remove the interior parts of an image.  I want to remove the background of the interior sections of the wheel as I have for the outside of the image.  I used the pen tool to outline the image both outside and inside, but no matter what I try, the inside parts that need to be erased won't disappear. Can anyone help me figure this out??

[pixxxelschubser · Accepted solution]

Hi @ESE_Carbon,

at first - Illustrator is not the best tool for that. Photoshop should be the tool of your choice.

But anyhow it is possible with Illustrator.

1) your wheel (with a blue background gradient for better seeing the result)

2) draw all "cutting" paths (for this example I only made the outline, the inner part and the upper left part)

3) made a compound path from these paths

4) select the compound path and your image --> RMB --> create clipping mask

Done (but remember: you have to create ALL inner paths)