Add interest to presentations by changing the shape of your designs using a mask layer. Instead of standard rectangular colourways, you can display garment shapes, custom edges, die cut designs or any other motifs. 

If you have partial images saved as .ava4 files, these already contain alpha masks and can be dragged directly from the Finder onto your Layout Window, making the creation of advanced layouts speedy and fun.

A key advantage of this feature is the ability to display colourways on top of each other, as if they are overlapping.

Masks can be tonal or solid using 1 bit or 8 bit layers. Solid 1bit masks are ideal cut outs for special shaped images, such as die cut wallpaper borders. Tonal 8 bit masks, such as textures or vignettes, can be used to create transparent feathered effects which can add softness to the presentation.

With a tonal mask, wherever solid colour is used, the design is displayed at full strength.

As the tones on the mask get lighter, the design softens and gets lighter. Try playing around with a tonal mask to see what effects you can create.

Creating a custom shaped colourway

1. Open a document to be put in to repeat and drag a crop box over a single repeat of the design. Try to be as accurate as possible.
2. Either draw the mask that you wish to use (such as a garment shape) on the new layer, or copy and paste a shape from another file to the mask layer.
   
   

3. In the Layers Palette, double click on the text next to the new layer. Name the new layer ‘QC Mask’. The name must be entered exactly like this, with the Q, C and M in upper case and the rest in lower case.
   
4. Open the Layout Window and add a new colourway to the page.
5. Make the QC Mask layer invisible and all design layers visible. A cut out effect is created around the mask, so that the design is only displayed where there is information painted on the mask layer.
   
6. To add more colourways with the same mask effect, go to Colourway Menu > Duplicate. To make the most of the mask effect, remove the palette and colourway number from your colourways and set the colourway frames to 0.

Using the Tools Palette in the Layout Window, you can create your own custom colour chips which can be used in addition to, or instead of the standard colourway palette.

1. Select one of the Shape Tools in the Layout Tools Palette.
   
2. Draw a colour chip by clicking and dragging a box to the desired size on the layout. The colour of the chip will default to red but this can be changed later.
   

If a specific size is required, click on the colour chip and click on the Size button in the toolbar, type in the dimensions and click OK.

If a perfect circle or square is desired, hold down the shift key whilst drawing the shape.
If you wish to resize the shape proportionally, you can select the shape by clicking on it, then holding down the option key and dragging the shape accordingly.

To make more interesting colour chips, try using a combination of overlaying circles or rectangles to give the impression of depth.

3. Select the main colour chip object (which will display your actual colour) and go to Layout Menu > Text > Colour Name.
   

An associated text box will be added to the top of the shape with the name of the current colour. As the text is an associated object, it will be connected to the colour chip no matter where it is positioned, so you can move the text above, below, beside or anywhere around the chip and it will remain grouped with it.

4. Drag and drop any colour on to the chip and both the colour chip and colour name will instantly update. Colours can be dragged from colour files, the Layers Palette, Swatches, or from another graphic shape. All colour chips created in this way are soft proofed and colour matched like all other colours in AVA and ColourSys.
   
   

Creating more chips in the same style

1. Select the colour chip and all of its associated parts and then do one of the following:
   • Go to Edit Menu > Duplicate or click on the Duplicate button in the toolbar to create a second identical chip. Repeat this step as many times as you need to create the required number of chips
   • Go to Layout Menu > Tile. Select the ‘Duplicate objects’ option from the pop up bar and enter the desired number of chips, the number across and the spacing, then click OK. The selected number of chips will tile out across the page
2. Drag the colours you wish to display on to the chips from your layers, the Swatches Palette, or a ColourSys colour file. The chips and their names will update automatically. If the colour was selected from a picker wheel, the word ‘picker’ will be used.
3. If another set of identical chips are needed (perhaps for another page), simply Select All the chips, duplicate them, move them to the new position and then drag the new colours on to each chip.
4. If applicable, save the layout as a Template for use in other files in the future.