How to invert a picture in 1-click using Adobe Illustrator?
If you are looking for a way to invert your designs in Adobe Illustrator so that you can use it in a vinyl cutting machine, t-shirt printing, reusable plastic stencil, spray painting mould, inverted print, or if you simply need to create a negative image to cut from as opposed to your original design, you are at the right place!
Today, I’d like to share with you a very useful technique I use very often. This is how to invert your design in Illustrator. Sometimes, I will come across a design that looks great on a white background but not on a dark background. If I want to print that design on a black shirt or other products, I will invert the image in Illustrator first to make sure it looks good.
It is really simple with the help of the pathfinder tool in Illustrator. Follow the steps below to learn how to invert your artwork in one single click:
1. Enable the “Rectangle Tool” from the toolbar (or use the shortcut key M).
2. Draw a square or rectangle on top of your design. It can also be any other shape you want.
3. Select everything on this layer: From the menu, click Select > All.
4. Now is the magic moment: Go to the Pathfinder panel and click the “Exclude” icon (click Window > Pathfinder if you cannot find the panel). If it doesn’t work for your design or layout, try the other tools in the pathfinder such as “Minus Front” or “Minus Back”.
Done! You can now save or export your design to any format you want.
On a side note, if you are using a cricut cutting machine, there is a similar tool in “Cricut Design Space” called the slice tool which allows you to cut one image out of another. The tool will split two overlapping images or text into different parts, creating a group of completely new paths similar to Adobe Illustrator.
Feel free to let me know if you have encountered any problem with the steps above. You can click the 🗨️Responses button below to leave me a comment or select the specific step you want to comment on and click the 🗨️Responses button to open the response panel on the right side. I’m happy to help in any way I can. Thank you for reading and give me a clap if you find it useful. It means a lot to me as someone who literally just started writing blogs/articles in 2022.
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