Is it possible to be sexually harrassed by Illustrator CS?

[Penman]

I think it might. I'm having a problem with the way it's stroking me.

I'm using I-CS to build template web pages. I realize now (after some other help on the boards) that the reason I'm not seeing 'crisp' lines is that when I draw a rectangle, the border of that rectangle is a stroke. What I think is happening is that the stroke is centered on the edge of the box. Thus if I choose a 1 pixel stroke, I-CS tries to draw a 1 pixel line centered on the edge of the box. Thus it tries to display half a pixel all round and the result is soft and washed out.

Proof of this seems to be that 2 pixel strokes appear sharp, dense and only distiguisahble from 1 pixel strokes in terms of their density. It appears that I-CS draws a mid-gray line when it can't draw half a pixel.

Make sense?

The real kicker is this - the 2 pixel stroke - which by my theory is 12 pixel wide - isn't. It's 2 pixels wide. Problem is I want to be able to draw a dense black line a sigle pixel wide. How can I fix this?

Cheers...

 

[Penman]

Talking to myself.

I think it might. I'm having a problem with the way it's stroking me.

I'm using I-CS to build template web pages. I realize now (after some other help on the boards) that the reason I'm not seeing 'crisp' lines is that when I draw a rectangle, the border of that rectangle is a stroke. What I think is happening is that the stroke is centered on the edge of the box. Thus if I choose a 1 pixel stroke, I-CS tries to draw a 1 pixel line centered on the edge of the box. Thus it tries to display half a pixel all round and the result is soft and washed out.

Proof of this seems to be that 2 pixel strokes appear sharp, dense and only distiguisahble from 1 pixel strokes in terms of their density. It appears that I-CS draws a mid-gray line when it can't draw half a pixel.

Make sense?

The real kicker is this - the 2 pixel stroke - which by my theory is 12 pixel wide - isn't. It's 2 pixels wide. Problem is I want to be able to draw a dense black line a sigle pixel wide. How can I fix this?

Cheers...

Okay - the only solution I've found is to layer an opaque white box on a stroked box (to know out the inner stroke) leaving a line of one pixel. It looks good - however clunky it is in practice. Any better suggestions?

 

[zarathustra]

You have several things that might contribute to that effect:

First, turn off Pixel preview (command-option-Y). This mode will only give you clean lines at 100% viewing (command-1).

When pixel preview is turned on and you zoom in or out from 100%, Illustrator will not redraw the graphics so that they appear clear, but rather performs a "transform", much like if you take a 200x200 px image into photoshop and resize it to be 1500x1500 px. It won't look pretty. However, if you turn pixel preview off, this will not happen.

I would not recommend layering objects to get the look you want. When you want to see something what it would look like on screen turn on pixel preview and zoom to 100%

Hope that helps.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Did you try taking anti-aliasing off? Draw a black box with anti-aliasing off (don't make it a shape) in a new layer. Option click on the layer to select just the object. Then go to Select > Modify > Contract and contract the selection by 1 pixel.

Cut the selection and you'll be left with a 1 pixel edged box.

D

 

[zarathustra]

Did you try taking anti-aliasing off? Draw a black box with anti-aliasing off (don't make it a shape) in a new layer. Option click on the layer to select just the object. Then go to Select > Modify > Contract and contract the selection by 1 pixel.

Cut the selection and you'll be left with a 1 pixel edged box.

D

You are talking about Photoshop. He was having trouble with Illustrator.

 

[decksnap]

Did you try setting your grid to a 1 pixel grid? This way you could use 1-pixel wide boxes for lines that would snap to the exact pixel size you want, and not use strokes at all.

My real advice is Illustrator is not the best program for pixel-exact web comps. I recommend Fireworks.

 

[Champale]

My vote

I can't help with the pixel problem but you've got my vote for the best title I've seen all year!