In this tutorial, we're going to cover the benefits, some uses, and the 'how-to' of two powerful methods to hide or show areas of an Illustrator document without deleting objects that you want to be invisible, which allows you to go back and re-work more easily.
Opacity masks can be used in Illustrator "blend to transparent" which is generally accomplished very easily in Photoshop. However, Photoshop isn't always the correct tool for a project. So in this brief tutorial we'll show you how to create, apply and adjust opacity masks in Adobe Illustrator for a reflection effect.
There are dozens of ways in Adobe Illustrator to combine objects to produce new shapes or effects. But one of the most creative--and probably least known--is the opacity mask. With this technique, you can combine an object with one or more other objects to define transparent areas of the shape. You can even use Opacity Masks to create image effects on live type.