One rectangle, four masks

The same flat rectangle four times over, each under a different stencil — a gradient fade, darkened edges, letters cut through it, a stencil read from transparency — and a band that fades out with a label painted whole inside it.

A soft mask is a drawing built apart from the page and never shown: it works as a stencil. Where it comes out light, what you paint goes through whole; where it comes out dark, nothing does. It is how a fade stops being a stack of nearly transparent rectangles.

Four panels are painted exactly the same way — one flat rectangle each — and differ only in the stencil in force: a gradient fade, darkened edges, letters cut through the fill, and a stencil read from transparency rather than from lightness. At the foot, a band fades out under a label that stays whole inside it.

What this example shows

• Stencils read from lightness and stencils read from transparency, both shown.
• A fade and darkened edges, from a gradient used as a stencil.
• Text cut out of a fill with a stencil rather than with a cut-out.

The code, in full

The same document is written twice, once in each language. Both files are shown in full, with the code coloured on the server, and can be copied in one click.

The document itself

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