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pascalt70848740
pascalt70848740
Known Participant
February 21, 2021
Answered

Jagged/pixelated Edges between surfaces

  • February 21, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 5148 views

Hi, I have a problem that bugs me for years now and I never found a proper solution for: Edges that look fine in Illustrator or exported as JPEGs are jagged/pixelated when exported as SVGs added to a PDF. It´s especially visible where the dark surfaces meet. There is a little room, where the background shows through.

 

My workflow is the following: I draw the outlines and color them with the paint bucket tool. Afterwards I expand and merge same colors with the pathfinder.

 

One option I found is to go go to path - offset path and expand the forms just a tiny little bit. It closes the gabs between the surfaces, but then the other outlines become pixelated, because there are two outlines really close to each other now. It looks better, but still not 100% professional.

 

Thanks in advance.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Ton Frederiks

I can see the anti-aliasing problem.

I also understand why they are not visible in a jpeg export when Art Optimised is used.

I think Offset Path is an option to hide these anti-aliasing problems on screen, but they should not be visible on printers that use PostScript or the PDF Printing Engine.

But I cannot see other outlines become pixelated when Offset Path is used.

 

2 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
February 21, 2021

I can see the anti-aliasing problem.

I also understand why they are not visible in a jpeg export when Art Optimised is used.

I think Offset Path is an option to hide these anti-aliasing problems on screen, but they should not be visible on printers that use PostScript or the PDF Printing Engine.

But I cannot see other outlines become pixelated when Offset Path is used.

 

pascalt70848740
pascalt70848740Author
Known Participant
February 21, 2021

Thanks for your reply,

 

I think printing isn´t a problem, but SVGs and PDFs for web use. The visibility of the offset path problem depends on the Illustration. Sometimes you can hardly see it, but sometimes, when you have a detailed illustration, it shows. With offset path it creates a second larger shape, if you could select and delete all smaller shapes in one step you could get rid of the problem, but I don´t think there is a way. They all have the same color and are on the same layer.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 21, 2021

I think a tiny Offset Path (the one from the Object menu, not the effect) is the best way to hide the problem for screen display.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 21, 2021

Can you please describe step by step what you are exporting where and why this ends up being a JPEG.

 

To get rid of that efficiently, what you could do is of course design this in a way that shapes are actually stacked.

pascalt70848740
pascalt70848740Author
Known Participant
February 21, 2021

Thanks for your quick reply.

 

I export it as a JPEG under file - export - export as - and select JPG.

 

I could design it that way, but apart from being a very tedious workflow, especially when the illustrations get more detailed, it would also make the paint bucket tool completely unuseable. It separates the shapes automatically, which creates the problem. Why even provide the tool, if you can´t use it?

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