Create and edit a mask

Create and edit a mask

Now that you’ve made various modifications to the classic car image, you’ll perform one last procedure to give it the appearance of becoming gradually transparent. In Fireworks you can apply two kinds of masks:

vector masks and bitmap masks. For this tutorial, you’ll apply a simple bitmap mask to the car image. You’ll then modify it by giving it a gradient fill. The pixels in the mask will either display or hide the car image, depending on their grayscale value.  

Apply a mask 

First you will apply an empty, white bitmap mask to the car image. A white mask shows a selected object or image, whereas black pixels in a mask hide a selected object or image. You’ll also paint on the mask to make the car image appear to be fading into the background.

1 With the Pointer tool, select the bitmap image.

2 Click the Add Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel. An empty, transparent mask is added to the selected image. You can see the mask has been added by looking at the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel. The yellow highlight around the mask thumbnail indicates that it is selected.

Edit the mask

Now you will give the bitmap image a transparent appearance by adding a gradient fill to the mask.

1 With the mask thumbnail selected in the Layers panel, click and hold down the mouse button on the Paint Bucket tool in the Bitmap section of the Tools panel. Choose the Gradient tool from the pop-up menu that appears.

2 Click the Fill Color box in the Property inspector. The Edit Gradient pop-up window opens.

3 Choose White, Black from the bottom of the Preset pop-up menu. The color ramp and swatches change to reflect the new setting. The color swatches located just beneath the color ramp allow you to modify the colors in the gradient.

4 Drag the left (white) color swatch about 1/4 of the way to the right to adjust the gradient.

5 Click outside the Edit Gradient pop-up window to close it.

6 On the canvas, drag the Gradient pointer across the bitmap image, as shown in the following illustration. A line appears onscreen as you drag, allowing you to define the angle and distance in which the gradient will be applied.

7 Release the mouse button. The mask is modified with the gradient fill you created. The mask gives the car image a graduated transparent appearance. The mask thumbnail in the Layers panel displays the gradient fill you applied.

8 Choose the Pointer tool and click the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel. The Property inspector shows that the mask was applied using its grayscale appearance. The darker pixels in the mask knock out the image of the car, and the lighter pixels in the mask show the car.