"Expand" clipping mask?

I have a halftone gradient that I used to create color inside an image. I belive I need to make the clipped area into shapes so the screen printer can use it. Is this even possible?
Thanks
Illustrator CS5

The green part is cut with the clipping mask

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How to make a clipping mask in this particular case?

Okay, Just to begin I know how to make a clipping mask, but for the case that I'm going to present right now I just can't figure out what mistake I am doing (if any). However I am a beginner.
http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/how-to-create-a-medieval-paper-scroll/
In the link to above tutorial on how to make a medieval scrol I'm stuck at step 25 and would be glad to anyone who helped.
As said in step 25 that expand the appearance of the scroll and select the two then clip the mask. In th above picture I have just selected the scroll to show how it looks.
Now as you can see in the image below I have expanded the appearance of the paper scroll. Then I selected the paper scrol and the yellowish green grunge background placed below it. And the moment I hit Ctrl+7 (in windows) or Command+7 (in Mac) to make a clipping mask the error that showed up has been highlighted.
One more thing, I have clipped masks before too in the same tutorial given above but I don't know what has gone wrong for me in this step.
Please help.
Signed,
Awais Rauf

Why would you want a clipping mask? I don’t see a reason for it.
However, for what you want I would use the Pathfinder panel to combine all the paths into one shape. First use the ungroup and release compound commands a few times each, to make sure you have nothing grouped. Then press the top left button in the Pathfinder p[panel. This should produce one closed path that just surrounds the scroll.

Is there a fix for the slow processing yet? Clipping mask slows down Illustrator CS4 to the point it can't be used

I've seen a few older posts regarding CS4's bug with applying a clipping mask to any image that is somewhat complex, but have yet to find an answer.
The problem is, any time a clipping mask is applied to a semi-complex shape, Illustrator CS4 slows almost to a halt. We're talking 10 minutes of the beach ball to apply the mask and then another few minutes to do anything else with the document. This is unacceptable. My system is loaded (Dual 1.8 GHz G5, 1.25 GB of memory). The exact same files process fine in CS3. Many of our other designers are running iMacs and cannot work on the files at all using CS4. There has to be an answer to this problem.
Prefs have been deleted, Document Raster Effects has been lowered. Any other suggestions?
Your help is greatly appreciated.

My system is loaded (Dual 1.8 GHz G5, 1.25 GB of memory).
Uhm.. that's "loaded"? That's like the slowest G5 made with almost the minimum amount of RAM.
But.. I agree with you. Clipping masks seems to drastically slow CS4 down. Even if an object isn't really complex, but included many objects. I'm running a much faster system than you are and I have to wait around 3 to 10 seconds after any operation for some files. It's annoying. So far, I've not found any solution other than to expand and clip the masks.

Illustrator - Pattern Swatch / Clipping mask issue

I'm currently working in Illustrator CS6. I'm creating pattern swatches and have successfully created 20 - but 4 are giving me the following issue.
When I drag the perfect swatch tile into swatches it appears as so instead of the perfect tile:
"New pattern swatch 3" has a white space on the right. Which sometimes when I create the swatch takes up half of the 'swatch.'
When I go to create a shape and apply the pattern, I am left with an empty box.
When I double click to adjust the pattern I get this dialog box:
When I go to adjust the bounding box, to see where my pattern is - this crazy mess happens:
Further investigation and deleting items to see whats happening:
Bits of my pattern appear, but not sure why the other bars are there.
I'm having this issue with four very different patterns. But I have also succesfully created more complicated ones. Not sure why this is happening.
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hey everyone,
I am in the same version, same file. I have also tried starting from scratch in another file just to make sure. Same issue.
I have templates of what i want my patterns to be, so I have tried to make the patterns both ways. Starting from my original art - expanding all shapes and making them so they will tile perfectly.
1. with clipping mask. 2. released mask, and expanded shape. 3. perfect tile.
from scratch, made to tile perfectly.
Same issue for both:
To make sure it wasn't only this one I tried a different pattern that was giving me the same error before hand.
I tried with original art which didn't work, so I quickly recreated with squares. Same tile, one time it was empty producing same issue as above. And second time it did this:
1. What tile is supposed to look like 2. Tile applied to shape - but the pattern swatch icon is empty?
Maybe this is a program bug?

Clipping Mask not working

Okay, so I am EXTREMELY new to this (I started about an hour ago!) I am trying to make a clipping mask with the mask being the outline of France and the image inside the French flag. Here are the steps I've taken so far:
File>New
Open>Silhouette of France (photo)
Image trace as silhouette>Expand.
Drag in to new file.
Open>French flag (photo)
Drag in to new file and put in separate layer to the silhouette.
Place the silhouette on top of the French flag, select all, make clipping mask.
Then everything goes white!! I can still see the outline, paths etc. of the silhouette but I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong! If someone could explain it to me in layman's terms that would be amazing because I really don't know what I'm doing!
I'll include the pictures I am using and the end result I keep getting...

SoBo,
The France parts seem to be a Group rather than a Compound Path. It would be better if you could expand the Layer(s) completely, also expanding the Group.
As I said, an Opacity Mask may be more forgiving, and work with a Group.
I took the France parts to have no stroke and a white fill, if not, you may give it one (or a black fill), then (the Invert Mask suggested in post #2 was based on a black fill, sorry):
1) Select the two parts of France and Object>Group or Object>Compound Mask>Make;
2) Select all and in the Appearance palette flyout click Make Opacity Mask with Clip ticked and Invert Mask unticked (ticked if the fill is black).
From the OP:
Drag in to new file and put in separate layer to the silhouette.
To have it in the same layer, just have one Layer and File>Place the flag image into it, then the France image, and take it from there.

Why are all paths in Clipping Masks and Compound Paths?

When I open up previous versions of Illustrator files (i.e. CS5), why are all of my paths messed up. Every object is embedded in a Clipping Mask, paths are compounded and in most cases type on a path is expanded into multiple non-editable objects. This causes complete redesign. This is terrible.

Because Illustrator accessed the PDF part of the file.
---> this points to corrupt files.
How were those files transferred to your computer? Are they on a server?
How old are they?
Which versions were they created in?
Did you already try to restart (the computer)?
Any plugins installed?

Cropping vs Clipping Masks etc.

I'm a graphic designer more familiar with photoshop but I'm starting to familiarize myself a lot more with illlustrator lately. I just been having trouble with the correct way to crop things in illustrator using pathfinder or a clipping mask. I have attached an image of what I'm trying to do, just tried a bunch of things but not getting the result I want. I basically want to crop the curved paths to the rectangular box below. Can someone give me a detailed description of how to go about this? I did use a blend to create the curved line pattern but I already expanded it to separate objects, I just can't seem to get any desired results using the pathfinder pallete. I also have a lot of trouble using clipping mask because illustrator has all it's crazy group and I always get errors when trying to make clipping masks. Any advice would be much appreciated!
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/stalsby/packagedesign.jpg[/IMG]

For my part you are welcome, stalsbee. Steve is an hour later than I (or not), so when I stopped posting about 00.14 AM yesterday, he posted here until 23.39 PM.
By the way, if you are in a scathing mood (or just tire of selecting the parts outside the Bounding Box of the Clipping Path, or wish to reduce the (file) size for export) you may use the Clipping Mask destructively (always save (a copy of) the artwork before destroying it):
1) With the Clipping Mask selected, you may Transparency dropdown>Multiply (or whatever else than Normal);
2) Object>Flatten Transparency (just keep the defaults).

Help with a clipping mask

Hopefully I can adequately explain this. I'm a design dabbler so excuse my lack of knowledge. I have a text logo that I am trying to place a tennis string (essentially just a grid of strings) mask over. I want the mask itself to be transparent so whatever color is underneath makes up the strings. For the life of me, I can't get it to happen without making the logo transparent or just jacking it up in general. I know this is probably really easy so please help me and make me feel stupid in the process.

sure, but it depends on whether or not those lines are shapes or paths. if they are paths;
1) select all of the paths that make up the net
2) go up to object>expand, make sure you have "strokes" checked in the dialogue box that pops up.
3) then go to your pathfinder pallet (window>pathfinder if it isnt already open)
4) click on the top left option (unite) and click it.
5) the word elite has to be an object not text so if you have not already done that, click on the text (dont highlite it) and press cmd+o, or ctrl+o if you are on a windows machine)
6) now select both objects (the net and "elite") and select object>clipping mask>make or type cmd+7
if the lines are shapes and not paths start from step 5.

Clipping Masks

Hi
I'm having some trouble with clipping masks. When I save an image that has been clipped as a png or jpeg, it saves the file as the original image size, rather than the clipped size. I've tried expanding but it doesn't work. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Drama,
There is the destructive deed, with the Clipping Mask selected:
1) In the Transparency palette/panel dropdown list select anything but Normal (Multiply is fine),
2) Object>Flatten Transparency, just keep the defaults including 100% Vector,
3) Shudder.
This should reduce the size to the Bounding Box of the Clipping Path.

Clipping mask is clipping my lines and not the actual object.

Hi all,I'm using the latest CC Illustrator.
I'm so frustrated and hope someone can help me, I've already spent a few hours trying to figure this out and looked through a number of tutorials and troubleshoot forums and I cant find an answer.
How do I stop the clipping mask from clipping inside the line itself, instead of my within the object. I'm still a newbie and I know I've done something wrong somewhere. I just cant figure out what.
Here are a couple of screenshots of my problem.
The end result looks pretty cool, but since this is for an assignment, I need it to work properly.
Help!

You are welcome. No you don't need to undo, you are on the right track, you expanded the lines in order to clip mask with a lighter image, now you need to use PathFinder to fill the holes (the turtle's shells) and clipmask them with a darker image like two turtle I created a few years ago. To use pathfinder, place a large rectangle behind the turtle expanded lines (compound path), select the expanded artwork and the rectangle and click PathFinder Divide button, at this point you will have the holes filled with paths and grouped with the original paths, so ungroup them. Then you select the newly generated paths and clip mask with a different and darker image. This attach image was done with PathFinder, pen tool and live paint. The images I used are real wood species, that I scanned into .jpg files.

Clipping mask with appearances?

Hi all, I was trying to create a clipping mask from an object that is made from two shapes, and one has appearances (thanks to Rufus Deuchler's evangelism), but I had to resort to expand appearance, then use the object as a clipping mask.
Is there really no way to keep the dynamic appearances and use a layer as a clipping mask?

You can also try using the transparency palette flyout >> Make opacity mask
Works similar to opacity masks as in Photoshop, and you can either use black for tranparent or white for tranparent dpending on if you click invert.

Transparency in clipping masks

Hi everyone.
I need to clip a big area where some object have to stay at 100% of transparency and the rest at 10%.
Done that, i make a clipping mask and the transparency disappear, making all the objects at the same (100%)
Why?
Thanks.
Ben

Please show before and after.
Please include a screenshot of the layer panel (expanded so objects are visible)

Draw inside, clipping masks & Live paint

I made a drawing of a stone floor excavation and I used 'draw inside' to delimit the excavation borders as below:
and this is what it looks like with edit contents selected:
Sadly, I also wanted to carry on drawing in 'Live paint' mode to 'colour in' sections (the above is just a small section of a much larger drawing), but because 'draw inside' creates a clipping mask, this object is now incompatible with the 'Live paint' paradigm! So I thought I would 'expand appearance' to continue and this is what I get:
What's that about? Whatever it is, it's not very useful!
My question is, is there a way for me to successfully translate a 'draw inside' object to a 'Live paint group'? The above objects are just simple shapes with a single fill & stroke.
Thanks

Ahh, you're a gem Monika, thank you very much! I only had to modify your answer a little to achieve my desired result, and that was to (after releasing clipping mask) copy and paste in front (because I still needed a version of the boundary as part of the Live paint group).
Thanks again
Les

Using "transform-effect copies" as a clipping mask

1. I have a box shape, with a transform effect applied on it that copies the box 5 times horizontally.
2. I want to use these 6 boxes as a clipping mask.
3. How do I:
a) Directly use this object as a clipping mask? Doesn't look like it's possible. When I try it only uses the original single box as the mask. The other 5 boxes disappear.
b) "Break" the box shape object into 6 separate boxes so that they're no longer "phantom copies" but individual objects that I can then group to form a real clipping mask.

Thank you, that worked (at least for B).
Since Expand Appearance permanently breaks the object, does that mean that A isn't possible? (where I can keep the original object intact as 1 box with 5 copies and still act as a clipping mask)

I need to create a clipping mask that covers the negative space of my created path...

Like in a Circle I need to make the compound path the inner area or negative space of my objects. I have expanded letters and joined their paths so that there are negative space, I was wondering if it were possible to fill in the negative space with a clipping mask? (like one would with an object like a circle or rectangle) The letter that I am using is an A and I have connected two A's together like a diamond reflecting each other... Is it possible to create a clipping mask to cover the negative space of the inside of the letters...?

Colio,
As (Kurt and) I (mis)understand it, you may, presuming the As form one Compound Path:
1) Lock the underlying gradient rectangle;
2) Copy the path of the four As and hide the original;
3) With the copy selected Object>Compound Path>Release, then delete the outer path, then select all the inner paths and Object>Compound Path>Make;
4) Unlock the rectangle from 1) and select it with the compound path from 3) and Object>Clipping Path>Make;
5) Show the original compound path from 2).
You can do it without the hiding and locking, but that makes it easier to see and to avoid mistakes.

"Expand" clipping mask?

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