Mask/Clipping Mask Issues?

[AikenCreations]

Hello, 

 

I am trying to get this design finished for a t-shirt, but I am having difficulty getting the palm tree/island and the seagulls (both in black) to where they are cut out of the background circle and appear transparent like the lines do. Help?

 

I will say that the palm trees, island, and seagulls are all on different layers. It is not one joined image (which I believe is giving me the problems). When I used Photoshop, I would just use the magic wand tool and cut out the image (which would make it transparent). I made a red background to see the problem spots. 

 

 

 

[Callum]

Hi AikenCreations,

 

Welcome to the forums  

 

Please could you provide the file in question so I can look into this further for you?

 

C

[toltec]

There are two issues here. Assuming what is white is to be printed onto a coloured tee shirt ?

 

Number one is to make the gulls and trees transparent. One quick and easy method would be to change their Layer Blend mode to Erase

 

e.g. One cat

 

Change the layer mode to Erase

 

No cat

 

It won't work if you export the file to SVG but works fine if you export as a TIFF or PNG.

 

Note, if you use transparency, you must export as a TIFF or PNG, as JPEG does not support transparency !

 

Number two is the fact that white on the image is no good to a silkscreen printer, white is a non printing colour, even if you are printing in white!!!. It would be best to turn the white (printing parts) into black.

 

That will create an image suitable for a silk screen printer. Just tell him/her that you want the design to be printed in white. He will use white ink.

 

 

Edit. Note that there is no need for transparency if you change the white part of  the image to black for printing in white ink. Just output the black image.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, toltec said:

white on the image is no good to a silkscreen printer, white is a non printing colour, even if you are printing in white!!!

 

In that case, why bother with transparency at all?? Why not simply make the white parts black so that they’ll be printed (in white or whatever colour you tell the printer to use) and make the black parts white so that they’ll be transparent? 

 

[toltec]

52 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

In that case, why bother with transparency at all? Why not simply make the white parts black so that they’ll be printed (in white or whatever colour you tell the printer to use) and make the black parts white so that they’ll be transparent??

 

 

Because, if say the birds and trees are bitmaps it's easier and quicker to set the blend mode to Erase than it is to change the colour of them all to white. Especially if they are not created in black i.e. if the trees had been set as bitmaps in green, Erase is easier.

 

However, in this case you are correct. It would work just as well. If I was creating the artwork from scratch, I would use black on a white background. Simples.

 

Edit. Actually on reflection, you are right. It was because the OP was talking about transparent areas, I sort of followed that line of thought, answering that question before I realised it was not really the right way to do it 

 

Ignore everything I said.