Pathfinder and Clipping Mask

Vaughn: Okay, let's look at our
Pathfinder opportunities.

When we're working with objects, we
can really start thinking about the

complexity of the shapes, and the ways
in which they can interact.

So, I'm going to just draw a couple basic
shapes here so we can start to see how

this might work, and I'm gonna change
these, fill and stroke, and let's do

a circle.

Okay, so, when we're thinking about
Pathfinder, we are thinking about the

way our paths are interacting.

So I've got two shapes here, they are
individual.

They are filled with two different colors,
but they aren't overlapping.

Anytime you have two or more shapes
overlapping, you can think about

the intersections, what could we do with
these intersections?

Again, these are on separate layers,
and that is fine, they're both in

layer one, but they're on their own,
sort of, layer.

So, to work with Pathfinder, you're going
to select both of your shapes, so I just

used my selection tool, and I drag
around to grab both of those shapes,

you just have to be touching them,
you don't have to grab the entirety, you

just have to touch on the path.

Now, when you have two things selected,
look at the bottom of your properties

panel, we have a Pathfinder right here.

So Pathfinder is just going to allow us to
interact with these objects in an

interesting way.

If you notice you've got four little
icons here, this is showing you a

condensed version.

Go ahead and use the more options
button, the three dots on the lower

right, click that, and now you have the
expanded version of your Pathfinder.

You can also go window, and find
Pathfinder.

If you want to bring it up, kind of on
its own, just remember there are more

opportunities than those just three.

So again, let's select these, black arrow
tool, Pathfinder here, or here.

Now, the Pathfinder's I tend to use the
most is divide.

I think this is a really interesting one,
uh, we've got both shape and Pathfinder

mode, so the shape mode considers
how to interact these as shapes, we're

thinking generally as, sort of, um, um,
thinking of them as objects.

So, here we have unite, if we choose
unite you're gonna get a compound

shape, notice it applies the fill, or
the appearances of the topmost layer.

So it went to yellow.

Gonna Command Z.

All of these have some opportunity for,
um, depending on the type of drawing

you're going to do, it could make your
work a lot quicker.

Minus front, that's going to be very
similar, we're always thinking about

layer order, so it minused out that front
most object, which was yellow, to leave

us with the remaining, which was the blue.

Command Z.

So again, layer order is really important
here, it's also important to note that

grouping will affect the Pathfinder.

Okay, um, intersect.

This is going to make a compound shape
with an intersection in that area, so this

is the intersection, that was the only
part that was intersecting.

Command Z.

And last one in the shape mode is
exclude, so that's gonna be the

opposite of intersect, it's going to
exclude the area that's overlapping.

Right there.

Command Z.

Okay, now the tool that I tend to
use the most when you're, um,

thinking of making some pretty complex
objects, is this divide.

This one is gonna be very interesting.

It's going to divide our shapes among
every intersection.

So if I click divide, at first, it looks
like nothing has happened.

What is important to realize in the
divide Pathfinder, if you look in your

layers panel, is that it automatically
groups the divisions.

So here is the division.

If you wanted to edit the individual
parts, you're gonna need to ungroup it.

So I'm gonna ungroup.

Now, when I click off, and I come back
in, I can actually see my separate shapes.

So here is that shape, here is my
central shape, and here is my

blue shape.

So divide breaks it up, groups it,
you can ungroup it, and have all

of these interesting shapes.

I'm gonna back us up, one more time,
just double check I've gone far enough,

oh, I got to keep going, Command Z, okay.

Now I'm back to my two original shapes.

Going to select them.

Other Pathfinders, you have trim, that
could be useful, um, if you use trim, it's

thinking in terms of, again, that
intersection, but it's kind of cutting

it out, cutting it out from leaving the
priority at the front most, and not

the back.

You also have merge, this is similar,
it's going to kind of create a group

that is merged, but again, pay attention
to your layers panel.

And, what else do we have here?

We've got crop, outline, and minus
back.

So you can play with those, um, those
again are kind of similar to our other,

a couple of other moves to make.

One of the ones I like to use the most,
if we had made a pretty complex drawing,

let me make some, um, here let's do some
brush marks, just really quickly, let's

say we've made some really beautiful,
um, drawings here.

And we've gone off the edge of our
canvas.

So we love what we've done, but,
we need to kind of edit the shapes.

Let's fill this with color, okay.

So we want to kind of edit the shapes to
fit inside the canvas.

One way to quickly and easily do this is
with our Pathfinder, and what we're going

to call a clipping mask.

So this is really easy, it's better to use
a Pathfinder, clipping mask combination

to sort of constrain the work to your
artboard, then it is to actually try to

draw your shapes, or edit your shapes to
fit with inside your artboard.

So let's see how this is gonna work.

We're gonna use our rectangle tool.

Come up to the corner, and we're gonna
draw a shape that covers the entire artboard.

The fill and the stroke aren't as
important, I tend to fill it with a

color just so we can see it, but again,
it's not going to be a sort of

permanent mark.

So we're just gonna draw our shape,
this should be the topmost layer, so make

sure you're working at the top.

Now, that looks good, you could always
edit your shape if it doesn't quite fit.

I'm gonna zoom myself out a little bit.

Now, use your selection tool.

Our goal here is to grab everything.

So I'm just gonna start far outside the
corner, now I've grabbed everything.

The next step is to tell Illustrator how
to kind of constrain the work to your

artboard, and we're gonna do this with
a clipping mask.

So a clipping mask, not to be confused
with the ways in which we were using

masks in Photoshop, but the idea is
somewhat similar in that we're

constraining the work to a certain space.

So here, we're gonna constrain to the
artboard with this filled rectangle.

The clipping mask option is a quick
action down here at the bottom of

your properties panel.

If you hit make clipping mask, notice
what's happened.

It has used that shape, and it sort of
clipped the work to that shape, and the

shape happened to be the size of our
artboard.

Now, we have constrained work, nice and
clean, we actually haven't lost the edges

of anything, if we want to edit it, we
still can, we can still move these lines

around, but the thing to note is that when
you make a clipping mask, you need to

release it in order to sort of get back
into those layers.

So here, you can release the mask, you
haven't lost it, it's still there, if you

look inside your layers, you'll see
there's that original rectangle we used

right there, and there's all of our parts.

So I've simply released it, now if I
needed to bump this over, and maybe

move it into my composition a little bit
more, let's say we also want to bring this

in a bit, we can always go back, so under
properties, you're gonna wanna make sure

you again select everything, that very
topmost layer is the clipping mask, make

clipping mask, it's constrained it.

You can, of course, see the bounding box
on this, anywhere you click in here it's

going to reveal that sort of bounding box.

So as I do this, I'm, well actually I'm
scaling the entire thing, so be

careful there.

If you needed to edit the actual, uh,
mask portion, you need to target just

that rectangle.

There you go.

So go into your layers.

So that was a clipping mask and the
Pathfinder tools.