Clipping Mask, Compound mask

[aqpaint]

Hi,

Maybe it will be an easy anwser for some you but I wonder if it is possible to break a clipping mask appart..

For example, I want to take a picture then create 4 square boxes to use them as a clipping mask. First I need to make a compound mask to make those 4 boxes one entity.
Then I make a clipping mask on the picture... The result is four boxes with a part of the picture in it.

Now, what if I want to separate those boxes and move them separatly?

I'm am clear with my question?

Thanks a lot!

 

[iSign]

Just clip the same pic four times

 

[aqpaint]

Just clip the same pic four times

Sorry for the late response! Yeah I thought about it but I made my example easy. If a have a big picture that take a lot of memory and I don't what to clip tons of times, is there any other solution?

Thanks

 

[SebastienL]

Crop your picture in Photoshop 4x and import them back in Illy. I don't think you can do what your asking in Illustrator. It doesn't "separate" the picture in 4 parts even if you have 4 clipping masks.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I would probably crop the pictures I want out of the bigger picture in Photoshop and save them as separate files to the size and resolution required. Then I would bring them in individually to illustrator. It doesn't make your process any faster but it allows you to move the pictures individually without having to load the large file multiple times. I haven't played around with the new versions of illustrator but they must have come up with a feature that allows you to crop the picture like it does in Photoshop without making a mask by now right?

 

[x2chris7x]

+1 for cropping in photoshop... you could try rasterizing the clipped pic in illustrator x4, if the image isnt too large to rasterize in illy... Make 1 box, clip it, rasterize it, then move on to 2nd box, and so on...

 

[GAC05]

In CorelDraw if you have a compound shape with an image (bitmap or vector) clipped inside and break the compound apart the clipped objects go into each of the broken parts.
If you then go into each clipped part you can crop the contained object down to just the shape it resides in without rasterizing or jumping out of Draw.
This works really well when setting up panels for a storefront display with the graphics spanning a bunch of panels but still needing to look continuous.
I tried to do this in CS5 but it does not appear to work, maybe the current version of AI can do this.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[shoresigns]

Just double click to isolate the compound path, then you can resize each box individually without breaking up your clipping mask.

If you're trying to do a mockup of an image spanning across multiple window panes, like Wayne suggested, another easy way is to just make one clipping mask the size of all the window panes combined, then draw the window frames overtop.

 

[MikePro]

1. 4 boxes over same image, placed where you want them clipped.
2. Copy/paste in place the same image 3 more times, 4 images total stacked on top of each other.
3. Create clipping mask using each of the boxes and one of the images beneath it.

VOILA!