Layer clipping

Clipping involves positioning one object inside another, creating a parent-child layer relationship. The path of the parent object becomes the new boundaries for the child object. Any areas of the child object which lie outside the parent object's path are masked (hidden).

Clipping can also be used to confine an adjustment or mask to a single layer or layer group.

Before
After
A pixel brush texture clipped inside an object.
Clipping in Layers panel
Layers panel showing the pixel brush texture being clipped (by dragging) within an object.

About clipping

When scaling a parent object, child (clipped) objects scale to maintain the correct aspect ratio. Scaling a clipped object has no effect on the parent object. A clipped object can be edited independently from its parent, e.g. adjusting color, opacity and/or blend mode.

Any object can act as a parent or child in clipping relationships. Therefore both vector objects and pixel layers can be either clipped or clipping.

To clip an object manually:
  1. In the document view, position the object to be clipped so it overlaps the object which will perform the clipping.
  2. On the Layers panel, drag the object to be clipped on top of the object which is to perform the clipping, then drop.
To clip an object on creation:
  1. Select the object which will perform the clipping.
  2. On the Edit menu, tap Inside.
  3. Draw your object over the selected object to auto-clip.
Expand/Collapse To select clipped objects:

Do one of the following:

  1. With the Move Tool active, double-tap the clipped object in the document view.
  2. On the Layers panel, expand the clipping object's entry, then tap the clipped object's entry.

The clipped object can now be moved and edited as needed.

To select a clipping object:

Do one of the following:

  1. With the Move Tool active, tap the clipping object in the document view.
  2. On the Layers panel, tap the clipping object's entry.
To remove clipping (unclip):
Move Options To resize an object without scaling its child layer content:

SEE ALSO: