Illustrator :: Keep Same Gradient Results When Using Offset Path?
May 24, 2013
The letter "A" on the left is filled with a radial gradient. The letter "A" on the right is the same except I used offset path to expand the shape of the letter "A" but the gradient doesn't keep it's original coordinates and the outside shape of the offset "A" does not match the gradient of the original inside "A". I need the gradient to expand out with the same center coordinates as the gradient inside the original "A". I can't just scale the "A". I need both shapes of the "A" but filled with the same gradient.
Is there a way to make the offset path not close the gap(red arrow)/not disappear if the two paths collide? like if the paths gets x milimeter close, then they dont offset anymore?
I'm doing an offset path command on a random shape and I need to repeat that in 4mm increments. I noticed that this command is far from accurate. To be as precise as possible I copy the base shape, paste it in front, apply the offset path command +4mm, +8mm etc (since the shape has round edges I chose round and a miter of 5000), and expand appearance. However, at 8mm expansion the round curves become pointy curves and therefore not mimicking the original shape.
I made a path and filled it with black. When I zoom in to make anchor adjustments, the fill and the path outline are offset making it very difficult to adjust and align filled paths. This happens all the time.
I'm really new to Illustrator, and I'm trying to print an image that will have a CutContour swatch around it, with a bleed outside of the CutContour line. You'll see that I set up the bleed by creating an offset path outside of the CutContour path. However, I would like to delete the rest of the image outside of that, but I'm not sure how to do this. I don't want to print the entire block of the photograph, just the image inside the tracing, leaving the outside white. I thought I could select the offset path and make a Clipping Mask from that but it says it's "too complex" or doesn't do anything at all. I've attached an example since it will probably make more sense to have something to look at in addition to my explanation...
So I am preparing a document for printing on an Epilog Zing Laser 10000. I have an outline for a cut I need to make, but I need to accomodate for the kerf of the laser. I am trying to select the circles and use the Offset Path tool to make new circles in the same places slightly smaller. However when I apply the negative offset I get a new circle on the outside of the path and on the inside.
As you can see there is now a larger circle as well as a smaller circle, but the smaller circles don't even have a smaller circle only a larger one despite the fact I entered a negative offset.What can I do to only get the smaller circle in all the circle? Am I even on the right path as far as the path offset tool? Pun intended.
I was trying to make a logo and for doing as I sketched it I thought Offset path will do. But unfortunately it didnt. By using this feature repeatedly the shape is losing its initial form. This is what I want (as concept) but as you can see the shapes don't have the same form as the original cloud:
I know is almost impossible to make this without any distortion, but I was wondering if there is any other methond with less shape deformation.
I have a path that turned out to be a litt ethicker than it needs to be.
I see that I can expand a path with Offset Path. I have read online that you can contract a path by entering a negative number, but when I try that, it ignores the minus sign and expends the path instead.
How do I offset the path of a random shape (for example the outline of a guitar) without having it automatically inset the path as well? Is there an easier way to delete the segments of path I don't want than double clicking continuously with the white arrow?
1. Adding Effects to a path applies the effect but the effect is not visible in the Appearance panel. 2. In conjunction with this, it appears that internal stroking of the object creates a weird offset. The stroking is visually incorrect. The stroke generally offset by -1 on each axis. If the object has had a rounding effect applied to it, some of the corners become mangled.
I'm currently having troubles from having too many anchor points after "image trace" or "offset path tool".
1. I would like to know if there's a way of deleting useless points AT ONCE. (ex. multiple anchor points on a stait line, or duplicated points at one anchor point) - I've tried "Simplify" but it changed the picture too much. - I've tried "Remove redundant points" when using "image trace" but it came out as below:
2. Sometimes pathfinder seems to make duplicated paths. Is there any way of knowing that there are duplicated paths OR eraseing duplicated paths at ONCE?
I'm trying to use the gradient annotator on a compound path. Moving the sliders and rotating the annotator works fine, but if I double click a slider and change the color the annotator disappears and the color of the slider stays the same. It works fine on non compound paths.
To summarize: It seems that compounding a path resets the rotation of the gradient to it's original degree of rotation.
Detailed version:
1. Create a shape. 2. Add a gradient fill. Note it's degree of rotation. Let's say it's set at 10°. 3. Now rotate the shape by any means (transform or rotate tool). Note the gradient degree of rotation has shifted the same amount as the shape was rotated (if it was rotated 50°, the gradient will show at 60°). 4. Make it a compound path. 5. Instantly the gradient shifts back to it's original degree of rotation of 10°.
It appears that when rotating a shape with a gradient, the rotation of the gradient is locked to the rotation of the shape. But when making it a compound shape it releases that lock and "remembers" it's original state. But that is only true as soon as you make it a compound path, but if you no go ahead and rotate it just a bit using the cursor (as opposed to selecting transform > rotate), the gradient will switch back to how you would expect it to rotate in the first place...
Workaround would be to make it a compound path before rotating the shape at all.
Is it possible to make a gradient over a defined path? For example from one end of an and-sign & to the other so that one is absolute dark and the other one white and so that this gradient is as if you would draw an and-sign with a pen constantly raising pressure on the paper so that it gets darker and darker?
It is for a logo in which one side should be really dark and the other one white.
Im trying to vexel hair.. First I tried a shape for each strand,but that looks crappy.. now im trying to stroke my path with the simulate pressure button. Looks better, but I also want to have a gradient, not only 1 stroke colour.. is this possible? If not, how do you fill your shape with a gradient?
I need to have a regular (linear) gradient but instead of going along a straight line, it should go along a custom made, freehand bezier path, observing all the turns or angles on that path.Is it possible in PS?
I know Xara provides a range a built in gradient fills (e.g. linear, spherical etc), but does it have the ability to have a gradient follow the edge of an object?
I have some negative space I created(black area, see first image) that I want to fill with type, not just a simple fill.
Basically I want to create the negative space from a bunch of small minus signs(-) that need to line up as they go across. If I type on each path one at a time as the text doesn't line up that way. This needs to be one continuous path. (see second image)
Unfortunately if I add them together, it creates a compound path, which you cannot type on, unless I am mistaken? So I need them to be a path, not a compound object.
How not to get chunky blur results in Illustrator? the screengrab shows what I mean...in the blurred portion, you can clearly see square "chunks" like maybe that's the best resolution it could do...matters not even if I scale up the art to be blurred...
When using image trace in CS6, illustrator seems to be shifting the results. Is there anyway to prevent this. I have several images that I am tracing along with other vector elements that need to stay in alignment with each other.
The Blue is the location of the original image and the black is the tracing result. I'm seeing this shift in each of the view modes and regardless of which preset I use. I've also tried leaving the image linked and embedding the image with no difference.
In addition, I am having a hard time getting black and white images to trace to the same quality I had in CS4. As you can see I'm getting pinched sections on lines even with a Path setting of 97-100% and Noise of 1 px. I also tried a path setting of as low as 20%, the pinching of the lines was gone, but it was so over generalized that I lost a lot of the other character.
In CS4 I was able to use path fitting 2px Min area 10px corner angle 20 and get this much better result
the white hole is preserved, there is no pinching of the line. I keep reading how the new image trace is supposed to be so much better, but I can't seem to find any evidence of it in a simple a black and white image.
I've tried every permutation of copy and paste; I renamed the path to path. It looks like a path when I add stroke, but it does not behave like one. I can't cut it or join it to any other path. It remembers it's text path status. I'm running OS X 10.7.5.
I accidentally converted a path to a text path. I searched the forum for how to convert it back to a regular path. The answer I found said to select the path and hit Command+C+F. This gives me another text path! I now have at least 6 copies of the path in my files but they are ALL text paths and none are visible with a stroke.
I'm working on pdf image files, 300 dpi, and I want to use the Image Trace tool to vectorized these ones. The result has to be under 4 colors, and the file is a mozaic of photos calibrated 3mm x 3mm.
The purpose is to vectorize the whole image ( composed with approximately 800 photos )I did different tests with the settings of the Image Trace tool with samples of 12 x 12 mm ( 4 photos x 4 photos ) and the result is correct. But when I try to do the same with the entire image, the result is just horrible The entire image is sized 200 mm height and 130 mm width, but the import format is exactly the same than the samlpes I made my presets on.
I was thinking that Illustrator should act the same with the full image than with the small one, it just took more time to calculate the rendering, but apparently not.
