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Gradients turning black - Illustrator 22.0.1

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
February 12, 2018
4 replies
25885 views

I'm having an issue where no matter what I do my gradient keeps going from 3-colors to all black. I've removed all spot colors and am working in CMYK. Is there a solution to this?

illustrator gradient

Correct answer Ton Frederiks

Ok. The problem is solved.

But there are easier ways to detect it.

Because of: Object > Path > Clean Up... always change your path (with the given tolerance)

Better possibilities

Looking for little crosses:

Or

select single anchor points

menu: select > object > single anchor points

This is the same selection in path view

Or

release (a copy of your) compound path

Now you can see paths or anchor points without dimensions directly in layers palette:

Delete them and

Have fun

https://forums.adobe.com/people/pixxxel+schubser wrote
Ok. The problem is solved.
But there are easier ways to detect it.
Because of: Object > Path > Clean Up... always change your path (with the given tolerance)

Object > Path > Clean Up... does not change your path.

You probably mean Object > Path > Simplify, which has a tolerance and does change it (but that's not useful in this case).

POL22

Participant

ALTERNATE SOLUTION HERE! I had this same issue, I wanted to use a gradient on cursive text, and even after converting to outlines, the gradient fill was showing as black. I tried the Clean Up command but nothing changed.

I have since learned that overlapping contours were the issue. My cursive font had slight overlaps to give the illusion of one constant handwritten word. The fix for me was converting the font to outlines (CTRL+SHIFT+O), and then using the Shape Builder Tool to join all the contours into one. You can easily do this on one letter, and if the letter instantly takes on the gradient appearance you want then you know it's working! If you want to keep the text editable, try adjusting the spacing betwen each letter in the Character Window until they aren't overlapping.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Yours is not an alternate solution to the problemdescribed above.

In order to apply a gradient to a text you don't even need to outline it.

pazchris

Participant

I had the same issue, what I did is go to "APPEARANCE" and found out the fill was below the characters in the layering. I moved it to the top and it seemed to work after that.

EDIT: Oh shoot sorry, just saw your screenshot and can see it's not the same issue I had.

NatZaff

Participant

I have the exact same issue with my compound paths and gradients.
I cleaned up the paths, but Illustrator stated that no clean up was necessary.
So I was still stuck with gradients going to black.
I have just found discovered if you expand the fill to a gradient mesh it seemed to fix the issue. For me at least 🙂

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

Please post a screen shot showing your gradient panel, swatch panel, color panel and the gradient result that you're getting (keep it selected so the panels will show what's going on).

_Whitespace_Author

Known Participant

I've named the gradient and built it with process colors. Every time I open the file it reverts to black even though it shows the gradient in the appearance panel.

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

I can't see anything that you've done wrong here. The three panels are showing what they should be so it seems possible that there might be some corruption here. Try trashing your preferences and see what happens when the program is reset to default.

To do so:

For Macintosh Users: With Illustrator closed launch a Finder Window in column view and click on your home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the following two files and delete them: “Adobe Illustrator <Version #> Settings” (earlier versions of Illustrator might just say “Adobe Illustrator”) and “com.adobe.Illustrator.plist”. When Illustrator is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

For Windows Users: You can try the quick way of resetting on a PC which is to hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when launching Illustrator and respond affirmatively when asked if you want to reset. There have been some recent reports that the window asking if you want to reset is not popping up but that the prefs are being reset anyway. If this works great but if it doesn’t you may have to manually delete them.

To do so:

On Windows 7 and above the preference files are hidden. To find them go to the Control Panel and open Folder Options and then click the View tab. Then select “Show hidden files and folders” or “Show hidden files, folders or drive options” in Advanced Settings. Then delete (or rename) the folder at the end of this path: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator [version number]\ Settings\<Language>. Make sure that Illustrator is closed when you do this. When you relaunch the program it will create new preference files and the program will be at its default settings.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

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