From the course: Illustrator: Seeing Through Transparency

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What is an opacity mask?

What is an opacity mask?

In Illustrator you may already be familiar with something called a mask and you're probably familiar with something called a clipping mask. That's where you can take some artwork and place it within the bounds so that it's only visible inside of that shape. However, Illustrator also possesses a far more powerful mask, something called an opacity mask. Now before we actually learn how to create these opacity masks, I wanted to take a moment to first explain what exactly an opacity mask is, what makes it different than a clipping mask. So let's take a look at this example right here with a document that I have open. It is called opacity_masks.ai. And on the bottom of my page over here I have these two circles here. This circle and this circle, which are both masks, and inside of that mask I have an image. It's the same image of these beautiful morning glories. Now this shape that's actually being used to create the masks in both of these examples is this shape over here on top. If I…

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