Hi all - hoping someone can help me.....I'm attempting to create a gradual blur effect on a layer.....basically what I have is a simple rectangular object which is blue in color. I simply want to have the left side be blurry and gradually increase in sharpness until it is completely sharp on the right hand side. It's kinda like creating a gradient where a color evenly and gradually gets darker in color, except in my case my effect isn't with the color, but rather the layer/shape evenly and gradually gets sharper and sharper.............how can I accomplisdh this?
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Gradual Blur in Illustrator 1
- Thread starter steppig
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...would help greatly if you can post a link to a screen shot of the artwork in question, what your needing might be better done in photoshop, but depends on the artwork you have...
...in illustrator, your only real options are, duplicating what you have, blurring with a filter effect and applying opacity masks, creating something like this:
andrew
...in illustrator, your only real options are, duplicating what you have, blurring with a filter effect and applying opacity masks, creating something like this:
andrew
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- #3
Andrew - thanks, your vector_blur.jpg is exactly what I need to do. My artwork is in fact a little more complicated than a single rectangle (I'm creating a striped ribbon with multiple colors).....but in the end, the process of what I need to do will follow the same concept....thanks again, I'll do what you mentioned!
...no problem steppig! the fiddliest area in illustrator is the opacity masking, in my example there are two being used, one for the blurred object and another for the sharp object, getting the blend about right on the mask needs a good bit of tweaking, otherwise you end up with "show thru" white if the opacity masks don't overlap well enough...
...i think i ended up masking less of the blurred object, to that of the sharper object...
...if your having to go around wavy curves, then you might have to be even more careful...
andrew
...worth mentioning that if your project is destined for print output, then ensure you raster effects settings are set to high resolution (effect > document raster effects settings), as when applying filter/transparency effects you introduce pixel information. This is directly effected by the raster effects settings, and also what downsample resolutions (if any) you have in your PDF export settings, along with the transparency flattening settings (if required depending on output method from illustrator)...
andrew
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Andrew - ok, so I'm finding this to be trickier than I thought it would be, in fact I'm not sure how to start...I've easily created my duplicate image, but I'm not sure what to do next....do you have a moment to give me like the next 3 or 4 steps?
...on the duplicate art you need to blur it, using effect > blur > gaussian blur...
...you then need to mask both the blurred art and the sharp art to get the blend, a mask is either 100 % black or 100% white, or percentages of black (like grey)...
...to create an opacity mask in illustrator, you can create a black to white gradient above the art, then select both the gradient and the art, then in the transparency palette choose the flyout menu (top right arrow of palette), select the option "make opacity mask"...
...anything black will hide, white will show...
...there are two previews in the transparency pallette, left is the actual art, right is the mask, you can click on either to select which element you need, then in the layers palette you will notice it changes, so to edit the mask, select the right preview in the transparency palette, in the layers palette select the mask, then in the gradient palette you can adjust the gradient mask...
andrew
...as mentioned earlier, without seeing the artwork in question i can't really help too much, if it is more complicated that blending left the right, then other steps may be needed, but would be best to see the illustrator file, or a screen shot of the art...
...if you can post a link, it will be much easier to help out further...
andrew
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