anyone use illustrator CS4?

[aaron]

this is kind of random but i figured you guys might be helpful. i'm trying to implement this kind of effect with text, where it inverts color only over another image, like the word "black" below:



does anyone know how to accomplish this? again, i'm using cs4. thanks. sorry for the random post.

[NotBlaine]

Depending on how complicated the bottom item is;

You'll want to use the pathfinder tool with the exclude option. It's the last one on the right.

[aaron]

can't seem to get it to work. the object on the bottom layer is an image that i live traced and i guess i just need it to behave as a "smart object" or something. is there a way to get that to work?

[aaron]

think i got it...

[aaron]

yeah definitely don't.

if i paste a jpg into illustrator, live trace it black and white and ignore the white portions, how do i make the text behave like it does in your example?

[NotBlaine]

You can't pathfind a live trace object.

You'll have to first convert it to regular paths by choosing Expand under the Live Trace option.

Next you'll have to delete any path that is not black, then you'll also have to select all the black shapes and group them. Afterwards the shape you want to work on goes on top. select the group and the shape on top and choose exclude.

[aaron]

i got it. thank you so much, that was the missing piece that i needed.