Outer Glow Cut Off

[katiegee723]

For some reason, in the file I'm working in, my outer glow keeps getting cut off. It's a large file, several feet wide, but the object I am applying the effect to is a simple elipse. I have tried previewing in both GPU and CPU to no avail. The weird crops also appear when I export the file. The document is set to 300 ppi / CMYK color space. The outer glow works fine on smaller objects, but I am printing a large poster, so that doesn't help.

[Ton Frederiks]

Did you try to make the space around the object larger in the Effect > Document Raster Effects Settings?

[katiegee723]

Yes, I justr tried upping it to 4" from 0.5" (the glow is 2"), and there was no change.

[Ton Frederiks]

Is it a large canvas document?

What happens if you copy a problem object, create a new small file, letter or a4 and paste it in there?

[Bobby Henderson]

I would make sure there are no technical issues with anchor points on the paths. Problems can include two or more points being doubled up on top of each other, points being broken open but appear closed or tiny segments of a path that are jaggy, twisting or even overlapping. Plugins like Vector First Aid can automatically detect and fix such issues. Moving anchor points to tangient edges of paths could also possibly help.

[katiegee723]

No, I don't think that's causing it. I made a plain rectangle with the
shape tool to see if that would display properly and I still got the same
issue.

[jeffw62743537]

If you're referring to the breaks in the glow around the front shape, I'm wondering if that shape is a closed or an open path. 

[katiegee723]

It is a closed path.

[Ton Frederiks]

Is it a large canvas document?

What happens if you copy a problem object, create a new small file, letter or a4 and paste it in there?

[Ton Frederiks]

Is it a large canvas document?

What happens if you copy a problem object, create a new small file, letter or a4 and paste it in there?

[katiegee723]

Sadly, I still get the same issue on a 4" x 6" artboard.

[Bobby Henderson]

Does the outer glow effect get clipped on any objects in any new document you create? If so I wonder if something might be corrupted in your Illustrator installation.

[katiegee723]

So I just made a large rectangle with a 3" outer glow and that seems to display fine. When I created a smaller circle, the issue popped up again. Does outer glow not work with large curves?

[Bobby Henderson]

The effect should display normally on any stock geometric shape. If anything, a glow effect should appear more smooth and consistent applied to a circle or other spherical/oval shape with no sharp corners. That raises my suspicions something is wrong with the Illustrator installation. I would be tempted to delete the AI Preferences file (which makes Illustrator automatically re-build it) as a first step in troubleshooting. Also I would make sure various hardware drivers in the computer system were up to date, such as a driver for a graphics accelerator chip/board. If those steps didn't work I'd want to remove and then re-install Illustrator to see if that cleans up the problem.

[katiegee723]

Sadly, I tried all of that, updated my OS, uninstalled Illustrator, deleted my preferences, and the issue continues. I am attaching a sample file in case anyone can diagnose what's happening.

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

Lowering the Raster Effects resolution to 150 ppi seems to work better.

[katiegee723]

Amazing, thank you!!

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that helped. Looks like there is a limitation for that effect on that size.