Illustrator White to Transparent 2

[minerat]

I'm pretty new to Illustrator and am starting with an image produced years ago. I have a black and white compass, with black triangular spokes and a white circle center with black text on that circle. It looks fine when exported on a white backgound

My problem is that I need the center to be transparent; I can change the background of the circle to transparent, but then the ends of the black triangles which make up the spokes show up (they are overly large and extend into the center).

I can't seem to alter the triangles to follow the curve. Can I somehow set my inner circle to transparent and not let the triangles show up? It kinda defeats the purpose of transparency to force it to cover up other layers, but I don't know what else to do, because when I export the image to a png, it's not fully transparent.

I've managed to create a clipping mask in a seperate layer that is exactly what I need to blank to transparent, but I can't make subtract what is already there.

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[blueark]

A clipping mask will work, but you have to do it a particular way. Try this (you might want to make sure everything is ungrouped before you begin):

1: Draw a shape that covers the entire compass -- any shape will do, such as a rectangle.
2: Go to View > Outline so you can see the rest of the shape.
3: Select the circle that marks the transparent area.
4: Double-click the Scale tool, select "Uniform", 100% scale, and press "Copy".
5: Without deselecting the circle, shift-click on the shape you drew in step 1 so that both are selected.
6: Go to Object > Compound Path > Make.
7: Keeping that shape selected, also select the points of the compass, then go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

That should do it. There are other ways of doing it too, such as using the Pathfinder, so hopefully that will give you a few options.

 

[itchybug]

Here's an elegant way without affecting the structure of the original:

1. Group the compass;

2. Draw a rectangle larger than the compass, send it to the back (for visibility purposes, we'll use RED):

3. Select both compass and rectangle, and from the transparency palette flyout, select "Make Opacity Mask". The result will look like this:

4. From the transparency palette, choose "Invert":

5. Save for web, png-24 with transparency:

This way, you don't have to edit the original to pieces.

HTH

Bert

Bert Philippus -

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[minerat]

Both posts are a great help. I started with the first and was able to get it to work for the center and began using the process on some other areas, but the second way is really elegant. Thank you both.

 

[minerat]

One oddity with the second method:

When I save as an EPS (which I also need), I'm losing transparency on the compass. I have a transparent Illustrator file with some text to the right of the compass. When I save in PNG or AI, transparency on the whole image is preserved, but when I save as an EPS I lose transparency on the compass. I'm checking the box for a transparent EPS, but for some reason when I open in Photoshop the compass is on a white background (the other half of the image - the text, has a transparent background).

If I open the source AI in photoshop it's all transparent. I need the EPS for a insertion in a word document. Transparency is fine with the first method & EPS exports. Any ideas?

 

[lucaso]

importing line-art into MS products such as Word works great with WMF, try exporting it to WMF.