Hi,

I would appreciate help on achieving an effect. I would like to create a hole in a picture to read text that is behind the picture but I can't figure out how to do it. I assume I will need to make some kind of mask and perform compositing but I can't seem to get it to work.

More details: I have a jpeg of a puzzle with one piece missing. I would like to put text behind the puzzle that can not be seen because the puzzle blocks the view. I want to zoom into the missing puzzle piece (which should be transparent) so that the text behind the puzzle is slowly exposed through the transparent missing piece of the puzzle. When fully zoomed in, I should be able to read the whole message originally blocked by the puzzle.

Hope I described the effect clearly. I've tried to practice achieving this effect by placing generated media (white text) on the top track, the puzzle jpeg on the second track and some generated media (text etc) on the third track. Following the compositing section in DSE's book, I can do simple compositing to see the second track through the letters on the upper track, but I still can't figure out how to create a transparent hole in the puzzle (secong track) to see the text on the third track.

Anyone know how to do this to give the effect I've described?

Thanks for your help.