Petal Anchor Points Not Snapping Correctly for Live Paint Bucket in Illustrator

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Hello, i really need your help with this. I have to draw a flower, but everytime when i place the anchor point on one flower petal, then duplicate the flower petals and choose the Live Paint Bucket to fill in all the petals it will not close on the anchor point. Anybody know how I can fix this?

[Monika Gause]

If you zoom in closer and then roll over  with the Live paint tool ,do you then get additional highlights there that indicate areas you can fill?

[Stefanie Langwerden]

No the petals are not closed tho each other, and every petal is filled.

[Monika Gause]

So your problem is that this is not precise?

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Yes, indeed. 

[Jacob Bugge]

Stephanie,

You can correct it in the following simple way with the help of Smart Guides, telling you when you are within snapping distance, to obtain coinciding tip Anchor Points where the petals meet:

1) Choose which petal you wish to align the others to, and deselect (you can just click an empty spot;

2) With the (normal) Selection Tool ClickDrag each of the other petals by the tip Anchor Point to snap to the one from 1);

3) Group if desired.

After that you can select and move the whole set about together.

You can look at Use Smart Guides, and specifically Set Smart Guides preferences here,

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/rulers-grids-guides-crop-marks.html

[Jacob Bugge]

Stefanie (apologising for my misspelling your name above),

In continuation,

When creating the (next) flower you can, still with the help of Smart Guides:

1) Create the first petal;

2) Select it with the (normal) Selection Tool;

3) Switch to the Rotate Tool and hold Alt/Option while you click within snapping distance of the inner Anchor Point (Smart Guides say anchor when you are within snapping distance), then insert the desired rotation angle (negative for clockwise, positive for anticlockwise) and click Copy (or hold Alt/Option and press C) to create the second petal;

4A) Hold Ctrl/Cmd and press D for each following petal to create the rest of the petals rotated by the same angle.

This will ensure full accuracy with all the inner Anchor Points coinciding from the beginning.

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Hello Jacob,

Thankyou for your message.

It's fine!

I applied your method as you described, with View > Snap to Pixel and Smart Guides on. But this doesn't work, they are still crooked. I opened the Preferences menu > Selection & Anchor Display. Maybe something is wrong here?:

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Or this?:

?: 

[Jacob Bugge]

Stefanie,

Now I apologize for my failing to mention this:

If either of Snap To Grid and Snap to Pixels is on, Smart Guides will fail to guide you, however smart they are.

Without knowing the scale of your screenshots with the issue, I looked at the pattern of positions and believed the Anchor Points were too close to one another to fit a pattern corresponding to Snap to Pixels.

Was Snap to Pixels turned on from the start?

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Jacob,

Yes indeed, I had Snap To Grid en Snap to Pixels on when i was trying to rotate te first petal.

And I had enabled this in Selection and Anchor Display: enabled Snap To Point, then it looked like this:

[Stefanie Langwerden]

I think its okay now, i used View > Smart Guides with Snap To Point + in Preferences > I used Snap To Point 1px on + I set Object Selection by Path Only off. 

I hope the white lines will go away now.

Thankyou so much for your help!

[Jacob Bugge]

You are welcome, Stefanie.

You can use Smart Guides and/or Snap to Point and have both or either work. I like the way Smart Guides highlight the snapping option, and II use it for for many other things as well, including the snapping in connexion with rotation, as in creating the (next) flower mentioned above; may I ask whether you have tried it?

But more importantly right now: which white lines are you referring to (it could be an anti aliasing issue if you have abutting paths, or depend on the monitor)?

A screenshot at a sufficient zoom level can help.

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Thankyou Jacob!

Yes of course, I Tried the Snap to Point under View with these options on in Preferences: 

Afther fixing the rotate issue I Export the artwork to SVG, but the white lines are showing up on all my exports, also the PDF, i'm now figuring out how to also fix this:

[Jacob Bugge]

Stefanie,

I fail to see white lines apart from those round the letters. Are these the ones causing trouble (and which kind), or where are the troublesome ones?

Apart from that I see some strangeness on the flower shown as lines to the left, where the lower parts of the right sides of the leftmost 1st and 2nd petals seem to (also) have (2 and 3) open curved path with a black fill, extending between the intersections with the neighbouring 3rd, 4th, and 5th, petals.

I wonder whether this is sufficiently woolly (vaag) and unintelligible (onbegrijpelijk).

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Jacob,

The white lines around AS and around the flower are okay.

But i mean the little white lines inside the flower, i imported the flower as SVG in Powerpoint and then there are white lines visible:

Do you have any idea how i can fix this?

[Stefanie Langwerden]

The fill i made with the Live Paint is also going away when i scale it with SHIFT:

[Jacob Bugge]

Stefanie,

It is an anti aliasing issue because you have abutting paths, as suspected,

I believe the best way is to create the artwork without the Live Paint, which puzzled me from the beginning as needless.

You can create optimized colouring by simply applying the desired basic colours to the individual petals in connexion with use of the Transparency palette (Opacity).

[Stefanie Langwerden]

Hi Jacob,

Today i solved the problem with the white lines:

I tried Object > Rasterize > and i changed the dpi from 300 to 72 + anti aliasing on. I did the same with the Object and Raster Effect settings. And i changed some things in Live Paint Options. This works for me!

[Jacob Bugge · Accepted solution]

Stefanie,

My suggestions on the avoidance of the white lines have been shaped by your mentioning PDF and SVG as end uses ("I Export the artwork to SVG, but the white lines are showing up on all my exports, also the PDF,").

I am afraid that rasterizing, especially at 72 PPI, will lead to unnecessary deterioration of quality, and limit the usability of the artwork.

If you go back to the original vector artwork:

What happens if you untick Anti-Aliased artwork in the General Preferences

Are the white lines still showing when you use Art Optimized in the settings in connexion with exporting (to raster formats)?

And how do you save/export to PDF and SVG?

[Stefanie Langwerden]

This is my artwork (PNG) now with the settings i mentioned in my last post above:

This is the artwork when i set Preferences > general > and untick Anti-Aliasted artwork and save it by Export > Export for screens:

My last saves as SVG/PDF: