# Masking an exact shape

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-an-exact-shape/106690>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [April 7, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-an-exact-shape/106690 "2004-04-07T23:51:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rysolag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@rysolag](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/rysolag)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-an-exact-shape/106690/1 "2004-04-07T23:51:27Z")

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hi

i feel like a noob…id like to mask an exact shape so i can do some cool animations that are only seen over that shape.

example:

lets say i have a big letter ‘P’ that i made in photoshop and import it into flash. i made the background transparent and saved it as a .png file. so then i place a ‘P’ on stage that i want to be visible and i place another one directly on top of it to act as the mask. when i use set mask in this situation it doesnt use the shape of a ‘P’ is uses a box of some weird dimension.

anyone know a good way to do this?  
should this work?

thanks

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-an-exact-shape/106690/2 "2004-04-08T07:38:07Z")

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Keep the P layer visible, and start drawing the shape of the P in the layer underneath it - OR - experiment with tracing your bitmaps. If you use the correct settings, you’ll end up with your P and the transparent part of the image. Delete the transparent part and there you have your P, ready to be used as a mask 🙂