Resizing bounding boxes, not the contents... 1

[kat000]

Hello,
I'm new to this forum, and I've been looking for help on this issue for quite a while, but with no luck.

I'm an intermediate Illustrator user, but I've found that when I add any effects (like a gaussian blur) to an object, the bounding box will cut off that effect, usually leaving a squared shape, and greatly minimizing the effect. Is there a way to resize the bounding box but leave the object the same size, thus having enough of a gap around the object so that whatever effect I add to it will not be cut off?

Thank you for any help you can give me. This has been bugging me for a while!

 

[dimoj]

Hmmm, the bounding box won't cut off your drop shadow. Are you sure there is not a clipping mask around your object? That's different from the bounding box and yes you can resize the clipping mask by using your Direct Selection tool (the white arrow).

 

[kat000]

Hello,
No, no clipping paths were used. I'll give you an easily reproducible example of what I mean. Draw a circle 2" across and fill with a solid color. After you rasterize it, apply a gaussian blur of at least 30 pixels. The bounding box will cut off much of the blur effect. What I'm trying to find out is if there is a way to prevent this, to expand the bounding box and leave an area around an object in which to apply whatever effect you want, however big you might want it, and not have the bounding box affect it in any way. Is this just wishful thinking on my part?

Thank you for any help anyone can give me on this.

 

[blueark]

When you draw your shape, draw a rectangle over it that's large enough to take the effect. Set the fill & stroke to none, and select both the rectangle and the shape you want to rasterize. In the Rasterize dialog box, make sure the background is set to Transparent. Now it should work.

 

[dimoj]

Oh OK, I didn't know you were Rasterising (and I'm not sure why you are when you can Gaussian Blur the vector) but anyway...

When you rasterise there is an Options section at the bottom of that box that says "Add...Around object".

Just change that to a higher value than your Blur value.

 

[kat000]

Thanks for your responses, guys, I certainly appreciate your help. I should mention that my copy of Illustrator 10 is *very* glitchy and crashes or freezes when I try to do many things. Rasterizing some items often prevents that or, at least, postpones those crashes until I can save and restart. So I find myself doing some rather unothodox things that others wouldn't normally do. Is there a way to increase the size of the bounding box without having to rasterize an item first?

 

[dimoj]

kat, it you go to Effect>Blur>Gaussain Blur (instead of the filter menu) your original shape will stay a vector, but I guess the blur itself is still considered a raster as you need to go to Effect>Document Raster Effects Setting and change the same option as detailed above to increase that clipping mask size.

The original object will still remain a vector though.