yo ok u kno say you have a person, as a gif, and you take out the bg, so its transparent around the edges of hte person, u still have a square picture. is ther any way to make the person themselves a mask, so u can have whatever going on behind it. when i make the picture as the mask, it just appears as a square. thnx for the help
none of the details of the person will appear anyway as a mask, so perhaps tracing the outline with the pen tool would be a good idea? i think there are some tutes. on tracing bitmaps to vector shapes around, if not, check out Kitiara’s site, she has a pretty good tute on it… its www.nowingsnohalo.co.uk
once you’ve traced the outline its a simple matter to fill it and turn it into a symbol then make it a mask layer 
hope it helps
No idea. But you could draw the outline of your character, fill it and turn it into a mask instead.
Stop reading my mind, Yoshi! :trout:
