Clipping & Masking in Inkscape | Complete Guide

in this video we'll learn all about how to use clipping and masking in inkscape let's start by creating a couple objects let's make this one a different color and put it on top of the first one then select them both to do clipping we can either right click the selection and choose set clip or we can go to object clip set what this does is it uses the top object as a clipping path to clip out all the parts of the bottom object that were outside of the top object and this is treated as one object so we can transform it and changes colors like with a normal object if we switch to the node tool here we still get the handles from modifying the clipped object and if we click this button here in the controls bar we also get the handles for modifying the clipping path if we want to remove the clipping we can either right click the object and choose release clip or go to objects clip release now we have our two original objects back although they retain any modifications we made to them during the clipping we can also inverse the clipping to do this we first need to turn the top object into a path by selecting it and going to path object to path then select both objects and go to object clip set inverse as you can see inverse clipping clips out the parts of the object and the clipping path covers and the reason we had to change the top object into a path first is that inverse clipping is actually a path effect we can see this if we open the path effects dialog by going to path path effects we can now see that the object has the power clip path effect added to it down here we can turn the inverse clipping off to get back to normal clipping and we can hide the clipping for this flattened clip option here if we turn off inverse clipping we can see that the bounding box extends beyond the clip shape sum if we turn this into a path now by going to path object to path then switch the node tool we get the nodes of the original clipped object if instead we wanted to get the nodes of this clipped part that's where the flattened clip option comes in let's first undo a couple times so we get the path effect back let's check flat and clip the bounding box now contains just the clip shape if we turn this into a path now and switch to the node tool we get the nodes of this path clipping is also great for cutting out a certain part of an image for this i'll import an image of a gorilla i've included a link to this image in the description in case you want to use it to follow along but you can use pretty much any image for this now we can switch to the pen tool and create a path around the gorilla as this is just a demonstration i won't worry about getting it perfect we can now select the path and the image and set the clip now we just have the gorilla with the rest of the image clipped out another thing with clipping is that if we blur a clipped object which we can do by opening the fill and stroke dialog with this button up here then increasing the blur down here the blurring gets clipped as well however if we group this first with this button it's now treated as a normal object so if we blur it the blurring doesn't get clipped if we ungroup it the blurring gets clipped again one more thing we can do with clipping is create what's called a clip group to do this we create an object then right click it and choose create clip group what this does is it clips the object with a copy of itself then groups them together so now we can double click this group to enter it then add another object in here and that object will also get clipped and the original object has actually also been grouped by itself so if we double click to enter this group we can change the size of the clipping area okay let's click another object to get outside of the clip group now let's move on to masking masking is similar to clipping except whereas clipping doesn't take into account the colors of the clipping path at all masking lets us use the colors of the mask to determine the transparency of the masked object the closer to black or transparent the mask is the more transparent the masked object will become and the closer to white it is the more opaque the masked object will be so if we create an object then create another object on top of it and make it 50 gray select them both and either right click and choose set mask or go to object mask set the bottom object gets clipped and becomes 50 transparent and like with clipping we can modify this like a normal object and if we go to the node tool we get the masked object's handles and clicking this button in the controls bar gives us the handles for the mask to release the mask either right click and choose release mask or go to object mask release like with clipping we can also do inverse masking this is more useful with images so i'll import this grayscale image of trees as an example i'm going to take this rectangle and put it behind the image and make it if i bigger both of these and do normal masking it looks kind of odd because the trees which are the darkest part of the image have become the most transparent to make it so the trees are the most opaque and the background is the most transparent we can go to object mask set inverse this actually doesn't work straight away but as we can see in the path effects dialog let's apply the power mask path effect to the object to get it working you just have to check inverse mask here now the trees are the most opaque so it looks better another thing we have in here is this add background to mask option if we turn off the inverse masking we can see that the object we put at the bottom is completely visible giving the mask a background but we can hide it with this option we can also change the color of the background here but it seems that it basically just lets us change the opacity of it something i like to use masking for is to give a reflection to an object for example let's create an ellipse at the bottom of the gorilla for a shadow let's make it black let's give it a radial feel by clicking this button in the fill and stroke dialog now switch to the select tool and click this button up here to move the ellipse below the gorilla now we can duplicate the gorilla with ctrl d flip it vertically with this button move it down here and click this button a few times to put it below the top gorilla and the shadow we can then create a rectangle covering the whole bottom gorilla give it a linear fill with this button in the fill and stroke dialog switch the gradients over here bring this first stop to the bottom hold ctrl and bring the other stop to the top as well as raise this alpha channel all the way up and make it white now we can switch to the select tool hold shift and alt and click in here to add the gorilla to the selection then set the mask now the gorilla has a reflection and as you can see you can clip or mask and already clipped your masked object alright that should do it for clipping and masking in inkscape if you have any questions or if you know something about clipping or masking that i failed to mention please let us know in the comments i hope you found this video useful and as always thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Sweater Cat Designs

Views: 34,093

Keywords: Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Affinity Designer, logo, vector, vector graphics, artwork, digital art, drawing, graphic design

Id: x3K2VqYZ4KI

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Mon May 16 2022