Shape builder leaves a faint stroke on solid (non-stroke) objects when subtracting

Question

I'm having an issue with the Shape Builder tool where – no matter what I do, subtracting leaves a faint "stroke" from the object that lies "behind" the merged object. To illustrate this I added a cyan rectangle behind the object which was created with the Shape Builder tool by overlapping a cyan rectangle over the red rectangle and then subtracting the cyan segment.

These objects had no stroke and were pure solids. Despite this, I tried expanding the objects and expanding appearance beforehand but nothing seems to work and the faint non-stroke appears anyway. As it is, I can't really use the shape builder tool for anything.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

Vanjazz · Accepted Answer

In case of the line visible in the cyan area you could try to Unite them with the Pathfinder and set the Pathfinder option to a high precision

Hi Ton!

This seemed to the trick when I used the Pathfinder's Unite command to create a compound path – the regular option merges the objects to on color, which is not what I want. I'll try this method on more complex artwork that I'm currently working on and get back to this thread if needed.

Many thanks for your assistance, Ton 🙂

Jacob Bugge · Answer

Vanjazz, How about an Opacity Mask, where you change the overlapping rectangle from cyan to black, then select the red one as well and click Make (Opacity) Mask in the Transparency palette flyout?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded