Merging a shape into another shape, please help?

[fazzy01]

I have a quick question guys, and i shall give you following simple example to see what i am trying to achieve

I have created a black rectangle shape with the rectangular shape tool. Now i have selected the star custom shape tool (red colour), and placed a star over the black rectangle, in the top right hand corner. I have placed half of this red star over the black rectange and half of it outside the rectangle.

How do i get rid of the excess red star outside of the black rectangle, so i am only left with a partial red star inside the black rectangle.

Hope you guys know what i am talking about lol

many thanks in advance

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi fazzy01

I assume that each shape is on its own Layer (if not my advice would not apply)

- Create a selection of just the outer boundaries of the rectangle.
- Select the Layer with the star and turn the selection into a Layer Mask
- Done

Hope that does what you need

John Wheeler

 

[Tony Bowman]

CTRL/CMD+Click rectangle layer to load it is a selection.

If you've done both one on the one layer, then use marquee tool to select the rectangle, invert the selection (CTRL+SHIFT+I) and hit 'delete' to remove excess star.

 

[MrToM]

Or alternatively you could keep everything as editable shapes and use vector masks...

1:50 NO AUDIO

You need to 'group' just that single layer as you cannot have more than one vector mask per layer...a regular 'shape' is already a 'hidden' vector mask applied to a solid colour fill layer...so you need to cheat by putting the shape in a group and applying additional vector masking via the group instead.

Regards.
MrToM.