Every designer has run into the problem – or maybe this is your first time: you need an easy way to make a foreground image mask a background image, but you need flexibility so you can adjust it later. Text is a great example. You may need to go back and adjust a font type, size, or even the words. But most layer mask tutorials teach destructive methods of masking which simply means you have to make a new mask when you are ready to edit. This tutorial guides you through how to use a simple technique for creating a flexible mask that allows the layers to be edited later with ease.

1. Save the above tiger image to your hard drive, open a new Illustrator document, and use the File -> Place feature to put the image onto your canvas.

 
2. Grab your Type Tool and type a phrase across the face of the tiger. We used the Impact font at 150 pt and typed “Visual Eyes”:

3. Now, using the Selection Tool, click on your text and then hold down Shift and click on your tiger image in the background. Note that both off these elements are on the same layer.

4. Go to Object -> Clipping Mask -> Make.

 
5. As you can see, the layers are locked together, so you can use the Selection Tool to move the text around. To edit the text, just grab the Text tool, click on the text, and make any edits. In the below example, we added some exclamation points:

 
6. If you want to move the background tiger layer, just use your Selection Tool, go to your Layer window and click on the layer selection area, and you can move it independent of the text.