Hi-
Would anyone know what is causing these faint lines to appear in the pattern? (see top row of ducks) I created the patterns in Illustrator for an invitation & the lines are not there, not matter how much I zoom in. When I open them in Photoshop to save as a JPG the lines are there. Even if I export as a JPG from Illustrator and open in PS...lines! Some are cross hair looking so I am not sure if this is from the pattern tool. I have them in the polka dot pattern that is part of this invite too so it's not just the shape. I thought maybe if I change from a hex pattern to offset brick it would help, but it isn't.
Thanks,
Lauren
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in illustrator saving as JPG dialog box, Choose Art optimized from the Anti-aliasing options
Thanks. I tried that and it didn't work. I also tried exporting as a PSD file and still no luck. I ended up unchecking the "anti-alias" when opening the AI file in PS & that seemed to do the trick.
I'd prefer to define the pattern in Photoshop starting with a single duck, or the shape of your choice. It's almost a mathematical process.
You need the grid turn on with a suitable spacing. (Tip: a quick way to alter grid spacing is to adjust the image resolution with Resample turned off. Increasing the resolution also increases the grid spacing. This is just a wee bit quicker than going into Preferences).
Lay down your first object, be it raster or vector shape, and start Free Transform. Nudge the centre handle to coincide with a grid intersection and OK it.
Copy the shape and repeat that a couple of times moving each one so that its FT centre handle coincides with the relevant grid intersection.
With three objects, merge the layers. Copy and move this time using the centre handle.
With three rows, merge into a single layer, and drag out some guides to form your pattern box
You can now make a selection that snaps to the guides, and copy to a new layer
You now have a perfectly reaping pattern. Note you will need to rasterize if you used shape layers. Trim the image with it set to transparent pixels (having turned off the other layers, and define your pattern.
Trevor, sadly sometimes one has to deal with what they have, rather than recreate the wheel.
Lauren, the problem with turning off anti-aliasing is that all other curved or angled art will probably look like garbage, however the pattern tile errors will be removed!
There IS a way to have your cake and eat it… This also works for flattened PDF art that has atomic region stitching errors when rasterized.
The key is that the image is rasterized with TRANSPARENCY. This does not work with flattened images, it requires transparent pixels.
Simply apply the image to itself in normal blend mode 100% opacity at least 5 times, I like at least 7 for safety. Easy to put into an action. Sounds crazy, but it works! This was driving me mad, how can doing nothing result in something? Well it is not really doing “nothing” as it IS affecting anti-aliased edges…
rayek.elfin wrote
Trevor, you do realize your pattern shows an obvious anti-aliased line at the pattern's edges?
I think that is to do with the way I defined the pattern using stroked shapes. I can't test right now (see my 'broken computer' thread) but I thinking is if I used solid shapes with no stroke, it would not show that outline. Hmmm, much as I hate using Photoshop on a laptop, here you go. Solid yellow shape with no stroke. 100% zoom.
Perhaps the selection marquee was set to anti-aliased? Not sure.
Trevor.Dennis wrote
rayek.elfin wrote
Trevor, you do realize your pattern shows an obvious anti-aliased line at the pattern's edges?
I think that is to do with the way I defined the pattern using stroked shapes. I can't test right now (see my 'broken computer' thread) but I thinking is if I used solid shapes with no stroke, it would not show that outline. Hmmm, much as I hate using Photoshop on a laptop, here you go. Solid yellow shape with no stroke. 100% zoom.
The anti-aliasing will only “grow” where it crosses transparency. If an anti-aliased edge is next to pixel content, there is no change!
So it will depend on the image whether the multiple apply image normal mode 100% opacity method is workable or not.
I agree that exporting out an aliased image at a large resolution then resampling down to the required resolution is another viable method with it’s own pros/cons. I was forced to use this method for a long time with raster exports from Acrobat Pro as it did not anti-alias vectors!
In the image below, the technique is 100% valid and does not lead to any visual errors, as the transparency is being flattened to white as the original Illustrator design intended.
A screenshot of a simple test file, original vectors containing tiled fill and other elements, rasterized to 300ppi, zoom 200%:
Compare to the screenshot below which has had apply image 100% normal blend applied 14 times:
Hi Stephen,
Thank you. I did try it & it worked. 
I just don't know how large the files will get if I apply 7x. Does it increase file size? Ultimately, I am flattening to a JPG for customers. The patterns are backgrounds for the most part.
On my end...I did a test print of my saved file w/ the unchecked box and I didn't see any issues with the visual. Going forward I will save my pattern as a hi-res JPG & then apply to the graphics.
Take care,
Lauren
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