How to clip a blurred object?

[Guest]

Hi guys,

I have some blurred objects on my artwork, but I want to clip them so that the blurred effect does not extend beyond the outer black shape. I have tried making a zero stroke/fill object which intersects the overspilling blur and tried to use this object as a clipping mask to clip the unwanted blurred areas. This just removes the blur from the blurred objects.

Does anyone have any ideas how to clip the unwanted blurred areas? Preferably keeping it all vector.

Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

Use the outer black shape to clip everything.

[Guest]

Hi Monika,

Thanks for the tip. However, when I use the outer black shape to convert to a clipping mask it asks me to select more than one object. When I then select the outer black shape and the blurred objects and convert to clipping mask it removes the blurred effect from the blurred objects:

Could you explain the precise workflow of how you would do it?

Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

I don't understand what exactly you're doing there.

Why does selecting more than one object remove the blur?

Please tell step by step

Please show the whole thing

Please show the layers panel (layers opened)

[Guest · Accepted solution]

I got there in the end. I created a non-stroked/filled version of the outer black shape for each white area. Moved them above each blurred object and the mask worked. Thanks for the help.

[Mike_Gondek]

To avoid these errors, I always fill my intended mask shape with a dummy color (eg: hot pink) prior to the mask command. This helps with getting them on correct layer and avoiding both these errors. The dummy color goes away once mask is made,  and you will have fewer masking issues using this technique.

[Andrei Koziakov]

Hi,

As Monica said you need to use outer black shape as a clipping mask. From the screenshots it's difficult to say if this outer path ready to be used as a clipping mask or not (is it a part of a group or compound path with inner paths or just a separate path)... But in any case there is one simple way, which allows to make a clipping path from any path:
1. Select only outer path using Group Selection Tool (Direct Selection with holding Alt or Opt key). Just click with this tool on any anchor point or segment of outer path
2. Copy it Cmd+C
3.  Deselect all the objects (Cmd+Shift+A)
4. Use Paste in front command (Cmd+F) and be sure that pasted path located above all the objects that need to be masked
5. Than select pasted path and all the objects below and create clipping mask (Cmd+7).