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sarahpeller
sarahpeller
Known Participant
December 31, 2017
Answered

Transparent Logo Puzzle

  • December 31, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 482 views

I have designed a logo that is meant to look hand-drawn, but I've converted it into a vector in Illustrator so that they can resize to their liking in the future.

Now she's decided that she wants some of the color to be transparent, so that paper color can be seen through the image once it's been printed, like this image below:

But I do not know how I might achieve this effect... If I printed straight from Photoshop, it would work. But what I usually do is import into illustrator then trace the image with the "high fidelity photo" preset so that it can be a vector file. And this creates solid white wherever there might be any transparency and "see-through" parts of the image. I could just keep working on this image in photoshop and skip making it a vector, but any printer that she would likely use would require a pdf to print from, which in my understanding loses all transparency as well.

Any ideas of how to get around this?

Thanks!!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer barbara_a7746676

As Monika suggested, when using Image Trace you can check the option Ignore White. That will remove the white background rectangle.

After that, you have a little work ahead of you because some areas that appear white are treated as various shades of light gray.

The areas are tiny, so it will help to zoom in a lot.

You can select those areas and use the Shape Builder tool to delete them. Hold down Alt or Option to delete.

Some letters will need to have counters removed. You can select the letters and use the same Shape Builder tool technique to delete the counters. 

3 replies

barbara_a7746676
Community Expert
barbara_a7746676Community Expert
Community Expert
December 31, 2017

If you don't want to bother to retrace, you can delete the white background with the Group Selection tool.

barbara_a7746676
Community Expert
barbara_a7746676Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
December 31, 2017

As Monika suggested, when using Image Trace you can check the option Ignore White. That will remove the white background rectangle.

After that, you have a little work ahead of you because some areas that appear white are treated as various shades of light gray.

The areas are tiny, so it will help to zoom in a lot.

You can select those areas and use the Shape Builder tool to delete them. Hold down Alt or Option to delete.

Some letters will need to have counters removed. You can select the letters and use the same Shape Builder tool technique to delete the counters. 

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 31, 2017

When vectorizing it, open the Image trace panel and check the option "Ignore White".

But Process white won't be printed anyway, it's just paper color.

Printing inks are slightly transparent as well, so colored paper will show through it.

Vectorizing this sort of illustration doesn't make a lot of sense, since enlarging is only possible up to a certain amount. Making it very large won't look too good. This illustration also can't be scaled too small, since you will lose pretty much all the detail in the type. On a business card this one might already have legibility issues.

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