Opacity Mask

With an “opacity mask”, we can change the transparency of the underlying artwork.

The masking object determines which areas are transparent and the degree of transparency.

You can use any colored object as a masking object.
In our example, I’m looking at a glum professor whose clothing needs a little adjustment.

The first thing we do is to select the clothes and then copy. Keyboard shortcut for copying is Ctrl C on your keyboard.
When it is selected, you can see it in the image and the “Layers” panel (1).

Then we draw a shape over his body. No matter what shape or any color as long as it covers the whole body.

Then we just draw a shape to paint with a pattern.
Whatever pattern you choose does not matter, I chose a flower pattern and gave him a bit of a “Flower Power” look.
How you do that you should know.

Then open the “Transparency” window and you click the downward pointing arrow (1) in the title bar.
This opens a drop-down menu where you choose “Make Opacity Mask” (2).

In the left panel, we find our pattern (A).
On the right side (B) we see that the mask has been formed. Currently, it is completely black, so we paste the jacket, that we have previously copied, in this mask.
Select the mask. Click in the Mask (1).

Then click on the “Edit” in the menu bar of the application and choose “Paste In Front” in the drop-down menu.

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