Illustrator transparent inner glow

Now I just feel stupid! That's much better so thank you, so so much.
I will probably revisit the ability to get the effect I want with vector in the future as I'm fed up with rgb->cmyk issues now, but thank you anway and for all your time (:

I'm sorry, I'm not doing very well am I. I thought that all raster effects are only 72dpi so thought it would be better to stick to vector, especially since I need to export the image at 300dpi. Plus then the editability is still there too.

Because raster isn't high enough quality for what I need.

Monika:

Thank you for replying.
That's a pain. Are any of the methods I initally tried (or other ways) vector?

(I made the pattern bigger than the shape I was applying it to and that fixed that problem. But I guess that's no longer relevant since inside glow is raster. But I shall remember that method for when it doesn't need to be vector so still thank you muchly.)

Thank you both for replying and trying to help me.

Mylenium:
Thank you for all your ideas.
The problem is I don't know enough about Ai to know how to achieve the desired effect. How would I go about using layer bleding modes? Multiple layers and duplicate options sound more tricky and likely for me to mess up. Part of the problem is also that I have so many shapes that need this inner glow effect so a simpler workflow is necessary for my sanity! But I'm not tied to any particular method. When you say knockout options, do you mean the pathfinder thingies? I tried and it doesn't appear to work but I could easily be doing it worng; do you have a method I could follow, please?

Monika:
Thank you for the clear step instructions.

Is there a way to stop the pattern repeating though?

Also, do these methods create raster or vector results? Because I need to be able to live trace so that the effect is smooth at high resolution/zoom level.

So your problem is that you can't apply an inner glow to a shape that has no fill?

You need to trick Illustrator:

1. Create a rectangle with no fill and no stroke.

2. Drag it into the swatches to create a pattern

3. Apply this pattern to your shape

4. Apply an inner glow to it.

Not sure I understand your problem. What about layer blending modes and transparencies? Multiple layers and duplicate options? It seems to me you are leaving those things out plus of course are too bent on trying to do everything in one sweep. Annoying as it is, due to how AI works this may not be possible. E.g. your inner glow example would probably work if you set the layer to multiply, but you may need to slice everything up along the edge of the differently colored backgrounds and use different colors for the glow to retain the visual result. Conversely, you could use a feathered shape on the inside of a dark are ansd play around with the knockout options. Again, don't get strung up on trying to play this simple. rarely ever is the direct way the best way in AE and al lthe same the best solutions are rarely ever the immediately obvious ones.

Mylenium