Note: In Canvas 5, a channel mask was defined as a 1-bit (black-and- white) channel. This type of channel produces either 100% transpar- ent or 100% opaque areas. A channel mask in a Canvas 5 document will be converted to the current channel mask format if you open the document in the current version of Canvas. Creating channel masks You can create a blank channel mask, or create a channel mask from a paint object. You create a channel mask when you render objects, you can use the Render command; see “Rendering objects and images” on page 31.593. You can use the Transparency palette or the Channels palette to cre- ate blank channel masks. In the Channels palette, an object’s channel mask is selected in the channel mask slot when the object is in chan- nel mask edit mode. In the Transparency palette, the Mask menu shows “Channel” when a selected object has a channel mask. To create a channel mask This procedure creates a blank channel mask for an object. 1 Select a text, paint, vector, or group object to mask. 2 Press Option (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and double-click the object. Or, choose Object > SpriteLayers > New Channel Mask. •   If the object to be masked is not a paint object, a dialog box asks you to set the resolution of the mask. Enter a resolution from 1 to 2,540 ppi and click OK. •   If the object is a paint object, the channel mask’s resolution will be the same as the paint object’s resolution. 3 The object appears in channel mask edit mode, with the object visible and the channel mask selected. You can edit the channel mask with painting tools. See “Editing channel masks” on page 20.365. 4 When you finish, press Esc to leave edit mode. When you create a new channel mask, the channel is filled with white pixels. At this point, the channel mask produces no transparency because white pixels in the channel mask produce 0% transparency in the masked object. As you edit the channel, painting with gray pro- duces partial transparency, and painting with black produces 100% transparency.
Canvas 8 Help: SpriteLayer effects (9 of 24)                                                        Page #363