Adobe Illustrator

[Diduch]

I have created a brush stroke elipse and placed it behind "Mom", the character in a logo that i am creating -- BUT, there is a white box behind "Mom" that i cannot get rid of. It is over-lapping onto the elipse and masking part of it out.

Perhaps it is something that was left behind when it was traced in the Live Trace option of Illustrator CS2?? The original "Mom" was a bitmap.and someone traced it for me in CS2. I have Illustrator CS, myself.

I have tried to erase, delete, cut and scissors this box. I get most of it deleted BUT some of the Mom deletes with it. I have tried it while ungrouping and regrouping Mom ..but no luck.

In other words, there is an invisible rectangular box around "Mom" that looks like that which circumscribes a bitmap. I understand that no such invisible rectangle should exist around a vector. And "Mom" used to be a bitmap but was imported into Illustrator CS2 and traced. Would this not have turned it into a vector?

This box also selects and shows some anchor points and paths around it. And I have been able to delete almost all of it, by deleting its paths and anchor points. But some of it seems to be associated with some points and paths within the "Mom" figure. Therefore, when they are deleted, parts of "Mom" delete, as well.

I have heard of an Opacity & Mask Define Knockout Shape option...but do not know if it applies in this case...

Any help would be most appreciated. Thanx

 

[itchybug]

Diddy:

When a live trace is done, the "white" areas are also traced, so there will be a white box around your momma. With the group-select tool (white arrow with +), click on the white area (you should now see a chunk of white selected around momma's head), then go to Select>Same>Fill Color to collect all white areas, then hit Delete, and voila!

To make things easier to see, you can go to View>Show Transparency Grid (I don't remember the shortcut), and now the box should be visible against the waffle.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[itchybug]

Diddy:

BEFORE CS2, I did come up with a nifty workaround:

1. Draw a path, horizontal, 10 points long, 1 point stroke, no fill;

2. Go to the brushes palette, and choose "New Brush" from the flyout, or simply drag your line onto the palette. In the dialog, make the brush an "Art Brush", in the next dialog choose "Proportional", 100%, that's it;

3. Select your path, make a copy of it. Lock all layers. On a new layer, paste the copy (in case something goes awry, so you have the original intact). Remove any fills and/or strokes, apply a simple 1 point stroke, then click on the art brush made earlier. Because the proportional setting was chosen, the stroke has an adjusted width of 1 point per 10 points of path length;

4. To actually know the stroke width of the brush, Object>Expand, then with the group select only, select the stroked path (there will also be an onstroked "spine" after expanding);

5. Look in the stroke palette, there is displayed the width in points, which, multiplied by 10, is the path length.

I just thought it was kinda nifty. Try it on a 10 point circle, make a path with a pi stroke.

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[itchybug]

Obviously, above reply ought to have been posted in the angled path length thread, duh!

http://www.itchybug.com