- [Narrator] How to add texture through an opacity mask.
Place your image file using file and place.
The image needs to be above the type.
Object, arrange, bring to front.
Now select the image and the type,
come to the transparency panel and make mask.
If I option or alt and click on the mask,
we see just the mask by itself
and what's happening is the whites
and light grays are revealing the layer,
the type in this case, the blacks
and dark grays are concealing.
Optional alt click again
to see both the layer and mask together.
If I select the layer
and when working with opacity masks,
it can be a bit confusing sometimes
what it is you have selected.
If you are in any doubt,
look for the blue border around the thumbnail.
So currently, I'm on the layer.
If I want to move the layer, then it is linked with the mask
and those two will move together.
But if I unlink them, I can move the text
independently of the mask or vice versa,
I can come to the mask
and move that independently of the text.
I should also mention that if we want
to temporarily disable the opacity mask,
shift click on that and shift click again to re-enable it.
With the opacity mask selected
if I wanted to affect the contrast,
I can come to my swatches panel.
Currently, black is applied, anything less than 100% black
will reduce the contrast of the opacity mask.
Now, depending on what you're after,
this may be as far as you need to go.
But if you want to vectorize the mask
so that it is completely scalable
and so that it provides more contrast,
it's either completely black or completely white,
then we will need to image trace the opacity mask.
And I will do that in the next movie.