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- [Instructor] In this

movie, I'm going to show you



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how to draw holes using a

feature called knockout group



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that's available inside

the transparency panel.



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So, when you see something

here, if you zoom in



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on the forehead, notice

that we have this gray line,



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right about there, and it

goes all the way across,



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and it's a function of this

white line in the background.



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That's happening because I have

a stroke around my headline.



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And so, somehow, I need

to get rid of that.



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Well, you might figure one

approach would be to select



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the image and then, let's

just go ahead and twirl open



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the clipping group right here.



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Notice that the clipping

mask has automatically



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jumped back to the top.



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So, Illustrator apparently

really prefers it



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to be at this location.



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But in any event, I can

go ahead and select this



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and then I might go up to

my fill swatch, up here



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in the control panel,

and change it to white,



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just so that we have something in the way.



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Well, if I go that route,

then we don't have that



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interaction with the

gradient background anymore.



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And I could try to fake it

by changing that fill color



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to purple, but that's not

really the effect I want.



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So I'm just going to

set this back to none.



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What I want to do instead

is cut a hole in that line.



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And so, I'm going to go ahead

and twirl the image layer closed



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and I'm going to turn

it off for the present,



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and I'm just going to go ahead

and zoom in a little bit here.



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Now, one way to carve a hole

would be to get the rectangle



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tool, and I want to make sure

that I'm working on the right



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layer, which is this guy, push

posh, and then I could drag



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across, like so, in order

to create a rectangle there.



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And then I could press

the V key to switch back



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to my black arrow tool and

shift-click on this guy,



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and then I could go up to the window menu



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and choose the pathfinder panel.



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Now, if I just subtract the front

shape, then I'm going to get



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this effect here, which

is obviously no better.



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But even if I were to press

the alt key, or the option key



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on the Mac, and click in

order to create a dynamic



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compound shape, I still

trace around the whole thing.



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So, I'm faced with a couple of solutions.



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One is a permanent solution,

which is to grab scissors tool



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and just start cuttin'

away at that path outline.



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But let's say I want to work

dynamically, and with a high



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degree of precision as well,

as you're about to see.



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I'm going to undo the

creation of that rectangle



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and I'm going to draw another

one, one that's bigger,



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just so we can really see what's going on.



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And I'm going to swap the

fill and stroke attributes



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by pressing shift X.



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So, we have a black fill

and we have no stroke.



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Alright, now I'm going to

switch back to my transparency



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panel here and I'm going

to expand it as well.



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And I'm going to reduce

the opacity value to 50%,



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just by pressing the five

key, because I've loaded



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dekeKeys, after all.



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Now, notice what happens.



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We're seeing through the

object to the objects below,



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and that makes all the sense in the world.



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But we could also instead

create a knockout,



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and we could treat this shape

as if it is tunneling through



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everything else on this layer.



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And to make that happen, you

want to go ahead and target



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the layer itself by clicking

on the circular meatball.



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And so, you need some form

of container, either a group



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or a layer, something,

and then you've got this



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knockout group checkbox here.



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Now, by default, it has this

little minus through it,



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and what that's telling

you is you're currently



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in the neutral state.



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And so, the idea is the

checkbox is turned neither on



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nor off, just so it

doesn't end up overriding



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other groups inside this layer.



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So it's basically as if

this function doesn't exist



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at this point.



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But your other option is to

turn it on by clicking on it,



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at which point, notice that

we're actually burrowing



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through the other text on this layer.



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Now, you can ignore the word your,



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because it's not on the same

layer, and so, for the moment,



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I'll just go ahead and turn it off here.



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And so, we'll just pay

attention to the one layer



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we're working on.



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So, in other words,

regardless of the opacity



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of this rectangle, it is

going to entirely knock out



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everything behind it.



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Alright, I'm going to press

the V key to switch back



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to my black arrow tool.



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I'll click off the shapes for

now and I'll click back on



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this rectangle, and so, I

could press the nine key



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in order to increase the opacity to 90%,



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and I'm still not going to see

anything in the background.



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I could press the one

key to set it to 10%,



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and I'm not going to see those

objects on this one layer.



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So they've all got to be in

a single container together.



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Again, that could be a group,

but in our case, it's a layer.



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What I really want, though,

is to be able to see



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entirely through this rectangle.



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Notice, if I click off of it,

it's still partially there,



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which is why we have

an opacity value of 0%.



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And so, I'm going to select

that rectangle and tap



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the tilde key, you may recall,

if you've loaded dekeKeys,



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or, of course, you could just

manually set this value to 0%,



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at which point we have a floating hole.



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And I can move that hole anyplace I like



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in order to cut away this layer.



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Alright now, I don't

really need this rectangle



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to be this big, so I'm going

to bring back the image layer



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so I can at least see what's going on.



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And the easiest way to

scale this rectangle



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is going to be to bring

back the bounding box.



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And you can do that either

by going up to the view menu



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and choosing show bounding box.



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I hate drifting through this menu, though,



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there's so much going on.



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Which is why it's so great

that you can just press



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control shift V or command

shift V on the Mac.



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Alright, and now I'll go

ahead and drag this guy down.



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It's too low, but I don't

want to have it over



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the text at all, so I

might just drag it out here



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where I can see the text, and

then I could drag this up,



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but, doesn't really matter at this point,



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we can leave it big down here.



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Now I want to drag it in at

the sides to this location



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right there and over to here.



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And because her hair is jet black,



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it ends up covering things quite nicely.



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After which point, I'll once

again press control shift B



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or command shift B on the Mac

to turn off the bounding box,



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and then I'll click off the

rectangle to deselect it,



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and then I'll turn back on my your layer.



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And I want you to notice

something about the your layer,



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something I really didn't make obvious



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in the previous movie.



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If I go ahead and target

that layer and switch back to



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the appearance panel, notice

the top-left corner of the Y.



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If I turn off that

gradient fill, you can see



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a little bit of gray up there.



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Whereas if I turn that gradient

fill back on to enhance



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the contrast of this

effect, that little area



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turns absolutely white.



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So that's the kind of

stuff you can accomplish



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with a little bit of additional effort.



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Alright, one other thing I want

to show you is what appears



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to be a bug in this particular

version of Illustrator.



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If I select the type tool,

I'll switch back to the layers



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panel and I'll click

on the push posh layer,



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and I'll click right about

there, notice things are already



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going extremely wrong.



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And then, if I go ahead

and click off the text,



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there is some white text

sitting right there, by the way.



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I'll just move it over

so we can see it better.



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And notice that it appears

just fine on the fly



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when I'm moving it around,

but as soon as I release,



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it looks terrible.



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So what I'll do is I'll

press control Y or command Y



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on the Mac to switch to the

outline mode for a minute,



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then I'll press control Y or

command Y again to switch back



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to the preview mode, so that

Illustrator has a chance



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to refresh the screen and

things go terribly awry.



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And that is a function for now, at least.



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I'm setting a layer to knockout

group, turning knockout



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group on, when that layer

contains small type.



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And so, notice our type

size is currently 12 points.



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If I take it up to 120

points, the problem goes away,



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and I can make that even more

evident by pressing control Y



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or command Y on the Mac a couple

of times in a row, at which



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point you'll see everything

reconciles quite nicely.



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So, that's just something to be aware of.



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I'm going to go ahead and get

rid of that text by pressing



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the backspace key or the

delete key on the Mac,



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and then I'll press control

zero or command zero on the Mac



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to center my zoom.



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And that is how you turn any

path outline into a hole,



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it can be text as well, by

setting its opacity to 0%



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and then making sure it's

inside of a group or a layer



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and turning on the

knockout group checkbox,



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here inside the transparency panel.