Black brush strokes

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 5, 2023
4 replies
2325 views

I created a series of 'plant texture brushes' for adobe illustrator. When I print, straight from illustrator or from PDF, the brushes becomes grainy, depending on what is beneath them. Looks fine over solid colours, but with white or transpancy causes them to only partially print. I am working in black and white and my colour space CMYK.

Id love to get some consitency, as line heirachy is very important to my work.

I am unsure whether any of the following could be at play

- Brushes

Would expanding all the strokes used in the brushes, then recreating the bushes be worthwild?

- User error

- It seems the printer can only handle a certain density of pixels, perhaps the brushes are to dense and need to be simplified

- Document setting

Is their some kind of downsampling taking place within the illustrator file that may cause this

- Printer driver

I use multiple printers, however perhaps their are some common driver setting that are causing this

Your help is greatly appreciated

Minor_Works_Project_SP00&01A.pdf

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Bobby Henderson

I would try expanding any appearances, such as variable line strokes, before creating new copies of the brushes. That might solve the problem.

H

Harold Holt 96Author

Known Participant

OK one last post before I hang up these brushes and just work with "roughen" effects

Attatched are some swatches:
1. Screenshow
2. PDF -> JPG (for consistency)
3. Test print-> Scan

Why there is so much variation? Im flecks of white coming through the background. Is there anything I can do to make this work on a standard printer? Post script is not an option at the current stage.

Thanks for your patience and regards.
PS - Pretend your explaing it to a 16 yr old 😄

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

I'm at a loss. If all of the artwork elements are 100% vector-based with appearances expanded into real editable paths they should print and do other functions without any problem. That is unless they're being reproduced at impossibly microscopic sizes. Adobe Illustrator has been able to support a large canvas mode with artboards up to 2270" X 2270" for the past couple of years.

Most of the work that I do is in large format, outdoor design. So I'm usually working at really big sizes and having to adjust to the challenges that come with that.

H

Harold Holt 96Author

Known Participant

Hi Bobby
Sounds like we have that in common. Unfortunatly I only get to work at concept and construction detial so no large format!

I think I have cracked this brush thing! I scaled them all to a consistent size then expand the appearance. Attatched swatches for download if you desire.

SIDENOTE: Do you have any tips for overlapping sheets (ie Siteplan 1of2 > Siteplan 2of2). My only workaround so far has been to seperate the notation layers and import and scale in Indesign (Object layer settings)

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Your images are tiny. I don't think I even understand the problem. Is the problem perhaps halftone screen?

What kind of printer is this? Can it output CMYK or does it do some weird color conversion before outputting your artwork?

H

Harold Holt 96Author

Known Participant

Ill reup the jpg examples. To put it simply, these stroke are only partially printing, but appear intact onscreen.

Printers are Cannon MP270 pixmax and Cannon C3835i, any thought on where the colour conversion would be taking place. Driver appears to be Mocrosoft OpenXPS Class 2