Minus front not preserving all objects

[rina299]

Hello, all!

I am sorry if this is answered elsewhere, but I've been Googling this for an hour and I'm just done.

I'm well-versed with photoshop as an artist, but Illustrator is still something I struggle with. I am simply trying to punch out the foreground (white) from the background (black).

I have two groups in one layer: Silhouette (vectorized via image trace if that matters), and Details (which are grouped objects from an expanded and stylized image trace). All I want to do is punch the details out of the silhouette. However, when I use minus front, this is the before and after the minus front function produces:

BEFORE MINUS FRONT

AFTER MINUS FRONT:

As you can see, there are objects from the back missing which shouldn't be.

This is for a gift to my dad (our late doggo!) so I would really appreciate your help!

[Barb Binder]

Hi Rinia:

How about a Photoshop technique—set the dog's blending mode to Multiply (to drop the white and keep the black and gray). it's in Window > Appearance.

~Barb

[rina299]

Thank you so much for your reply... unfortunately, it did not work...

I'm not sure I understand this... but I went into appearance>transparency and set the white to multiply... in Photoshop, this would make it a bit transparent and darken the layer beneath it. I tried it in Illustrator and I didn't notice a change. It's still white on black.

My layers are organized like this, if it matters...

Using a clipping mask (clip unchecked, invert mask checked) worked, but when I exported it, the white was still there, and it was offset to boot! I really don't get why this is happening. I even tried just exporting the selection (the black that remained) with all the other layers locked or deleted and it still produced the same result. I'm so lost. Illustrator is a whole different beast.

The printer I'm using only takes SVG files or I would have just exported a PNG in Photoshop by now... -.-"

The grey is just in the background to illustrate that the image is not the black and transparent look I need. It will be deleted upon export.

(It's just going on a dark blue water bottle, and I want to use the bottle colour as the dramatic shadow on the dog, represented as white in my screenshots, which I'm trying to cut out of the black silhouette)

Many, many thanks! I'm still trying to find a solution. Any help is appreciated!

[jane-e]

  Moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Illustrator

[jane-e]

You can't use Pathfinder on groups.

Are you trying to make the white transparent?

Try turning each color into a compound shape.

Or use Shape Builder instead of Pathfinder. Option (Alt) click or drag to subtract. (Select first)

[Omar.Fathy]

If you need to remove the white color paths (Shapes):

- When you are creating the Image Trace you can find an option in the Advanced section of the Image Trace Panel [Ignore White] it will remove all white colors.

- If you already made Image Trace you can use the Magic Wand tool and click any of the white color shapes then Press Delete.

[rina299 · Accepted solution]

Hello, all!

Thanks so much for your help.

What worked for me was using the pathfinder, but instead of using minus front, I used divide. Then I selected one white block and used select similar stroke and fill and once all were selected, I deleted them all!

I think my AI might be a bit buggy and I'm thinking of reinstalling it... I tried using the shapebuilder to subtract the white - and it was working - but it took over a minute to process each one. That's when I thought of using the divide function.

Thanks, everyone!