User Guide

CHAPTER 7
244
Working with Masks and Transparency
Selecting masks and control points
Before you can modify or animate masks, you must know how to select them, especially
when you’ve created more than one mask on a layer. Also, unlike layers, masks can have
more than one level of selection. You can select a mask as a whole path, which is appro-
priate when you want to move or resize a mask. However, if you want to change the shape
of a mask, select one or more points on a mask. Selected points appear solid, and
unselected points appear hollow.
To select all or part of one or more masks in the Layer or Composition window:
1 Click the selection tool ( ).
2 Do one of the following:
• To select a point on a mask, click it.
• To select an entire mask by clicking, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you
click a mask. To select more masks, hold down Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift
(Mac OS) as you click other masks.
• To select masks by dragging, hold down Shift, click inside the mask, and draw a marquee
completely around the points or masks you want to select.
To use the selection tool when the pen tool is selected, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or
Command (Mac OS).
To select masks in the Timeline window:
1 Click the right-facing arrow next to a layer name to expand it.
2 Click the right-facing arrow next to the Masks heading to expand it, revealing all masks
on that layer.
3 Do any of the following:
• To select one mask, click its name.
• To select a contiguous range of masks, hold down Shift as you click the names of the first
and last masks in the range.
UG.book Page 244 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM