Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 3/4/2008

Question
Hi Kevin,
I'm designing a vehicle wrap in cs3 and want a white blur around a logo and website.  I put a gaussian blur around it but it wasn't dark enough, so i duplicated it 6 times and layered them on top of eachother.  On screen it looks fine, however when I send it to print the blur is there but there's also a white box with a low opacity around the graphics that i don't want.  I have it at 1200ppi because it's scaled down to 1/20 and I've also tried saving it as different files such as pdf, eps and tif and nothing seems to work. I would greatly appreciate any help.

Answer
Hi Megan,

You've discovered one of the down sides to Illustrator, most effects are rasterized.

First, you need to go to Effect>Document Raster Effects Settings and change it to match your output. Second make sure your background says transparent, not white.

Im also concerned as to why your gaussian blur "wasn't dark enough", I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve.

Have you tried changing your transparency setting to multiply first? Duplicating a raster effect several times will only amplify the possibility of errors, so I would try something else to get the desired effect in one shot like changing the color.

If you do all this and you still have a semi-transparent white box, you may have an issue with transparency in general. Consult your printer and see if they have the same issue with your file. Most transparency effects run at a Postscript Level 3, while home printers run at a Level 2 which causes the issue. Your printer may not have this problem.

Thanks

Kevin