Scaling Down Vectorised Artwork Problem

[kpy5330]

Hey everyone. I've got an issue with my calligraphy artwork, which has been vectorised. I'm trying to scale it down from a size of around 150mm to 45mm. 

When the artwork is in the standard black colour, I see no issue with it. When I try to change it the vector and its outline to other colours like white, I can see that the strokes and outlines thicken and a few other places look weird (disconnected). I have tried to check the 'Scale Strokes & Effects' but it doesn't change anything. What on earth is going on?

I can't seem to find anything on this at other places on the Internet, so I really hope someone will be able to help me out. I'm a beginner user in AI.

Thank you in advance. 

[Mylenium]

Start by ensuring your objects' paths are actually closed and you're not relying on some automatic fill rule to bridge gaps. That and of course remove any strokes. Even a hairline stroke can massively affect appearance at different scales. Likewise, check things like grid snapping, overprint settings, DPI settings and so on. Other than that this could simply be hardware acceleration isses, so try software-only rendering mode.

Mylenium

[kpy5330]

Hello, 

Thanks for replying! DPI is at 300 at the moment, but I'll Google and check for the rest. 
What do you mean by software-only rendering mode? I'm pretty new to Illustrator so a lot of these terms are new to me. 

I've tried to Google it but I haven't found an answer for it yet.

[Jacob Bugge]

kpy,

As I (mis)understand the description, it could be related to Align to Pixel Grid / Pixel perfect art.

From CC 2017 on, you can see the options and behaviour here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/pixel-perfect.html

For earlier versions, you may select everything and then untick Align to Pixel Grid in the Transform palette, and also untick Align New Objects to Pixel Grid in the flyout options. It is crucial that the box is completely unticked, not just a - which also counts as ticked.

It may be noted that even if Align to Pixel Grid is unticked with all objects selected, as long as Align New Objects to Pixel Grid is ticked the creation of new objects will result in those new objects being aligned, even when they are created from existing objects as may happen with Pathfinder operations.

You may avoid document types with that as default (RGB for web and the like) or change the default for such documents.

Here is an exquisite screenshot made by Ton in the first post for older versions:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/7841770#7841770

And here is an exquisite screenshot by Isa in post #3:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2119525

You may also see the screenshots by Tony in post #3 here:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/9397981#9397981

[kpy5330 · Accepted solution]

Hey Jacob, thanks so much for your help. I had to start again from the original artwork and after that, I decreased the stroke values for the outline. It looked so much better after that, so I'm not too sure what happened in the first one. I'll practice again with another piece of artwork and see if this happens again.

[Jacob Bugge]

For my part you are welcome, kpy.

I hope you will report your findings.