Pasting inside.
Ever wonder how you take a photo, or other object and cut it so it’s only visible in a box or other shape?
I’m going to do this for Illustrator, cause I always forget how to do this in Illustrator, and in Freehand you just go up to Paste Inside.
Step One
Open your file.
Step Two
Place your image or design or whatever onto the page.
Step Three
Take your shape (box, circle, etc.) and put it on top of the image.
tep Four
Select both objects (making sure the shape is above the object needing to be cropped) and go to OBJECT > CLIPPING PATH > MAKE
Step Five
Realize you wanted to crop a different area? Don’t panic. Just click on the object you cropped with your DIRECT SELECT TOOL
And move the outlined, but not entirely visible object around until it’s just right.
Step Six
Realize your box or other shape is not quite right? Use your DIRECT SELECT TOOL and ever so carefully select one of the ANCHOR POINTS so that it is filled in. I have found no easy way to do this (unlike with Freehand) other than guessing exactly where the point must be and clicking. (the mouse also changes slightly when it’s over an anchor point, but it can still be finicky) Now, you’ll probably want to SHIFT+CLICK another corner so that you can expand the object or shrink it or whatever.
Step Seven
Finish the design, cause you’re done of your cropping!
Of course, you can also make your image cropped and the proper size in Photoshop (which is highly recommended) but remember, in Illustrator, you’re not limited to boxes. Have fun!
