Illustrator CS6 drop shadow looks worst

Anyone there know is it a bug of Illustrator CS6, I try the same size and same setup in Illustrator CS5 have no problem.

That looks like a pretty large document bu it is hard to tell since you did not give any specs
this is what I got on a 30x36 inch document, so the art is pretty large as well.

Similar Messages

Illustrator CC Drop Shadow Issue

Since upgrading to Illustrator CC, I am having random issues with drop shadows. It doesn't matter if the shadow is applied to a basic vector graphic per screenshot attached, or to a placed transparent image, and it can be on complex shapes or very simple shapes. I get these odd straight lines running through the shadow. It is just a CMYK file (no spot colour), set up for print, document raster effects resolution set to 300ppi. I have tried fiddling with the drop shadow settings, if I move the x and y settings it just moves the line. If I keep the x and y distance the same but remove the blur value, the line disappears (see screenshot without blur). It is not related to transparency, because even if I flatten the image and expand the shadow, it is still there.

Dhirendra Mohan, thanks but it happens on all different shapes and sizes, irrelevant of stroke being added or not, but it is definitely linked to high resolution, larger files.
Raymarcher, I reckon you've nailed it. I did not have this problem with CS5 on the same size files but updating to CC has caused a lot of performance issues on my Mac. Photoshop CC has already told me to update my video card. I'm running:
iMac 24" 2009 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4gb 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 256MB
Running OS X 10.8.5
Waiting on the next release of iMac before buying. Will just have to adjust the raster effects resolution in the meantime and will certainly try switching off other applications when working on large files and see if that works. Have never used SVG drop shadow but will read up thanks.
So problem not totally solved, clarification from Adobe that this would be the cause would be great, before I buy a new iMac please.
Cheers,
Julie

Illustrator CS5 drop shadow - blur not rendering correctly

I just got a new computer and have installed Illustrator on it. This is my first time using the program on this computer. I created this file on my old computer in Illustrator. When opening it today, in the newly installed version of CS5, the drop shadow blur effect is not rendering properly. However, as you can see in the screenshot, one of the words has a proper blur. Everything else does not! Anyone know what to do, short of re-installing the whole program? Red arrow is the problem drop shadow. Purple arrow is the drop shadow that blurred correctly.

Well it must be something wrong on this new computer, I can't figure out what. Whenever I do a new iteration of a drop shadow it doesn't render the blur. For example, the one below- the first "Tune in" is from the original document, created on my other computer. The second "Tune in" is what happens when I try to alter it in any way, including deleting the old drop shadow and adding a new one.

Illustrator cs3 drop shadow

I'm trying to add a drop shadow in Illustrator CS3. Unfortunately, when I select the object & choose Effect>Stylize, only glowing edges is available. How do I access drop shadow? I also tried filter>stylize & glowing edges was the only option again.

Cheryle:
You are accessing the Photoshop Effects section, move up to Stylize in Illustrator Effects (upper part of Effects menu).
steve

Drop Shadows Look Too Solid When Printed

Designer newbie here with a drop shadow question. I am working on a project using vintage-style square photos with a white stroke and a drop shadow. It looks great on the screen but I just got a page back from the printer and the drop shadows are way too solid-looking on the paper. They almost look like grey boxes around the photo.
This is a personal project and every time I print, I have to go to FedEx Office to pick it up, so I don't want to just fiddle. I'm hoping you can help me. How do I get them to look more subtle? I tried lowering the opacity and they just looked like lighter gray boxes around the photo.
I am using Adobe InDesign CS 6Here are the settings I am using:
Thanks!

The High Quality Press preset exports color unchanged so a default drop shadow will export as CMYK black percentages. I'm assuming that the FedX printer is some kind of composite copier and it might not color manage device CMYK values very well. By default ID documents are set up for US SWOP web press printing, which the FedX printer is not.
I don't think there's an easy answer for you, but I would build a test sheet with a dozen or so boxes with different shadows. It's not unusual for composite digital printer to have trouble with CMYK values, so try some shadows with RGB as the color and export with the PDF/X-4 preset.
Also set your document's RGB profile to sRGB :

CS6 Drop shadow will not blur.

I did the update it worked twice this morning and bam no blur on the drop shadow. I shut down completly and rebooted still not working. Any suggestions?

That is basically what I am doing it will work a few times and all of a sudden it stops again. Delete prefs and it works again. You can see when it stops that the gaussian blur is not being applied.

Copy/Paste graphic w/drop shadow to indesign - loses transparency

See above image.. I made a vector version of our company logo in illustrator (all programs referenced are cs5 btw) and it looks great, but when I copy and paste from Illustrator to InDesign, it loses the transparency around the logo. If I place the logo instead, it works fine. The trouble is there are about 16 variations of the logo, and its MUCH easier to copy/paste from one aggregate file instead of having many different logo files to place.
Background on how the logo was created: The inner circle area is multiple different gradient layers (some with transparency masks as well). The white line around the outside is an expanded stroke, and it had a drop shadow effect applied (Stylize menu), which I expanded so it would scale properly when scaling the logo up and down. Here is a link to download the logo: download logo
Q: Is there any way to make InDesign preserve the transparency when I copy and paste?
Would be eternally grateful if someone has a solution that allows me to copy/paste!

I agree with Bob's suggestion to use separate "layer groups" in your logo file for different styles. I also use separate layers inside InDesign to "multi-purpose" company documents with different backgrounds, graphics, and content. But that's the only way I use layers inside InDesign – Not for general placement of image files! I also disagree with ability to copy and paste graphics from Illustrator with drop shadow. Here's an .ai logo which I quickly added Drop Shadow to in Illustrator CS4, and then a Copy and Paste into InDesign CS4 document. Best workflow practice is to 'Place' image files as Bob suggests, linking them from a separate file folder.
For something "quick and dirty" I see no problem with Copy and Paste, but your success may vary based on OS, and CS versions you are using! Sometimes it is wiser to take a few shortcuts to hit rather than miss that deadline!

Drop shadow blur issue

Hi, we have come across an issue using Illustrator drop shadows with a large blur. What seems to happen is that Illustrator expands the box size and after fading the shadow to nothing it seems to fade back to the colour. To try create a box with a colour fill, add a drop shadow with any colour other than black with about a 7mm offset and a blur of over 10mm

I see the problem for one thing when yo give the feather a large setting it extends beyond the the shape that it is generated by so it is actually expanding beyond what a pears to be a clipping path that is totally invisible as well as extending to the opposite direction of the direction of the offset.
You can draw a shape that can mask the edges showing and make a clipping mask.
You can also make your own shadow which might prove to be a better option with a feathered copy of the objects shape and filling that with the color you want you can give it quite a feather if you desired.
The reason that might be better is that you can use a spot color which does not seem to be supported in drop shadows but is supported in feathered shapes.
This is puzzling as I swear I read somewhere this was fixed?
This is what a drop shadow looks like when created with a feathered rectangle of course you have more control this way as you can resize the shadow to give it a more realistic feel as a shadow would be larger then the original shape.
So the way they should fix this is to also have a setting for the clip as well as a setting for the size of the shadow or if the wish distance from object calculation.
So the feather technique also gives you the option of adjusting the placement of the shadow in a manually tactile manner. You should probably group the two once you finished or make it a symbol as Mordy points t making these types of object symbols are useful
and can come in handy especially if youy want to export to Flash at sometime in the future.
Anyway I am going to add these ideas to my feature request for cast shadows and other enhamcements to the shadow effect.
You can all do so as well.

Drop shadow on slideshow not rendering right when published

The drop shadow looks fine when applied while in muse but when previewed or published it does not.
The problem started after the February update. This is how it looks when published. Please help!!!!!

NViereckel schrieb:
The only way I can make it go away is to save the file as an illustrator ai file and use that for pdfs. This would be OK, but other suppliers need to use the file and want eps format
EPS is simply unsuitable when dealing with transparency (which is what your drop shadow is). So you need to work with AI for placing in InDesign. If other suppliers need EPS, then just send them that. Nothing should keep you from exporting another file format.

Question about drop shadow size

Hi All!
I have created a style that only contains a custom drop shadow. I frequently apply this style to illustrations that I'm creating for a book.
However, since updating to CC 2014, I've been having a problem with the style. The size of the drop shadows is different on every illustration I apply it to. I originally set the style up to have a 7 px size, but now, when applied, sometimes the size is 22 px, sometimes 30 px, sometimes 5 px.
Can anyone tell me what is going on and how I can get the drop shadow size to remain constant each time I apply it?
Thanks in advance!

I believe if you create a layer style preset the Adobe store the resolution of the document that you were editing when you created the preset into the preset so Photoshop can scale the style effect to the resolution of the document you apply the layer style preset to.
Layer style setting as you know are in terms of absolute pixel. That would mean the size of the shadow would vary on document that had different resolutions, Notice in menu layers there is Layers>Layer Style>Scale Effects... and In the Image Size dialog(s) there is a check box Scale Styles or a setting Scale Styles..
If it working differently in CC version 15 then is was in CC version 14 they may be a new bug.
If you want a 7px drop shadow no matter what the documents resolution is you may be able to record an action that add a 7 PX drop shadow using the Layer Style dialog not using a preset style.
I created a Drop Shadow Preset on a 300 DPI Document distance 2 px size 7px. I then recorded an action the applied that preset and then applied the same settings using the layer style dialog instead of the preset. There is a great difference on how the two steps were recorded.
When I step through the action on a 300 DPI document the drop shadows looks the same. On a 72DPI document the Preset drop shadow looks small like the 300dpi document however the step that was recorded with the Layer Style Dialog the layer drop shadow looks much larger for it was not scaled down to match the documents 72DPI resolution.
So it look like if you use a Layer style preset from the style palette the effect will be scaled for the documents DPI resolution. Notice in the action there is a Layer Style Scale 100% in the step recorded using the layer style dialog. Where the preset DS is applied some how by Photoshop and Photoshop scales the effect....

Odd greyscale behavior when drop-shadow is applied.

I have a file with four images in it. One is RGB and three are greyscale jpeg images. They all look fine.
Now, when I put a drop-shadow effect on the images, the RGB image looks as expected; but, the greyscale images all look lighter than before.
I exported a PDF of the two pages (I made a duplicate so one page has the shadow and one does not) with the PDF-X/1a profile. All of the greyscale images look lighter, even the page without the shadow, which looks darker in InDesign. The RGB image looks the same on both pages an in the PDF.
Why do the greyscale images look lighter when a drop-shadow is applied? Or, maybe a better question is, why does the image without the drop shadow look darker? (The darker image looks more natural. I opened the Greyscale images in both Apple's Preview and in Photoshop. Preview displays the nicer-looking darker image, but Photoshop shows the images as being lighter, the way it looks in the exported PDF.
Any ideas?

Thank you for this interesting discussion.
I set the Transparency Blend Space to RGB* and now all of the grayscale images look the same. They have all taken on the darker appearance. Until, of course, when I turn Overprint Preview on, in which case they all get lighter. In Photoshop, the image seems to be in-between the light and dark looks in ID.
You know, up until today, I was feeling pretty good about color on the computer, thinking all the problems of the past were behind us. Oh well!
Anyway, I have another question about Transparency Flattener Presets. It is set to Low by default in ID. I suppose this is to speed up rendering time. Now, when I export to a PDF there is a Transparency Flattener setting there, if the PDF is an X-1a file. In that case, does ID ignore the setting in the file under the Edit menu?
Also, I set the Transparency Flattener Preset in ID to High, but it always returns to Low when I check again. Why is this? (The Low, Medium, and High settings are surrounded by brackets, like this: [Low]. Does that mean anything?) So, what does the Transparency Flattener Settings affect? A print made directly from the file? The preview in ID? I thought I had all this down, but now I am a little confused.
*(BTW, this piece will be used as an outdoor poster on a kiosk and the media company has requested an RGB JPEG file, so I will be exporting this as a PDF-X/4 and then opening it in Photoshop before saving it as a JPEG. So, I know, the best thing to do is to convert the grayscale images as RGB files and maybe even adding a little tint, perhaps. But I am still curious about the other questions.)

Drop shadows and HTML5

When there is a Smart Shape with both a stroke and a fill, plus a drop shadow, the drop shadow looks like it only applies to the stroke. I have several such objects with fairly thick 3 or 4 pt stroke. The drop shadow should be behind both the stroke and the fill. To avoid this I've been creating two identical shapes when only one is needed. The bottom shape has a drop shadow and the top shape does not.
Does anyone know a better workaround that doesn't require so many shapes?

Hi Jay,
As you are used to, I double-checked what was my idea about those shadows: being simply a slightly moved duplicate of the original shape with the color, alpha and other settings you setup in the PI, Shadow accordion. I published to HTML5 and everything showed up as expected, here is a screenshot of that published version:
For the first smart shape I only decremented the Alpha more for the Fill in order to see better the duplicate, shadow image. The second one has no fill, but I customized the shadow color.
Could you post a screenshot of your different result?
Lilybiri

Illustrator CS6 (Mac) crashes when opening large documents with drop shadows

I have a Macbook Pro ver. 10.6.8 i7 Core, 8 Gb Ram, and I am running Adobe Illustrator CS6.
I have a document that is 18" x 42" and contains drop shadows. It was created using CS6.
When I apply a graphic style (gradient and drop shadow) It has a progress bar that says "Drop Shadow" and it fills up and freezes. I recreated the document, and I am having the same issue repeatedly.
In order to do what I needed, I had to ungroup the letters recieving the graphic style and apply it to each letter individually. If I try applying it to more than one object, the freeze happens again.
I saved the file I created, and now I can not open it. On load it has a progress bar that says "Drop Shadow" and it fills up and freezes.
I can open the same document in CS4 on the same system with no issues, it takes less than 5 seconds to load.
What is going on?

That's a good idea, but it was already set at the lowest resolution, so no luck, still freezes.
The worst part is that when you open it in CS4, it does that weird layer grouping/clipping mask thing with the layers so you can't easily edit the file, if I save the file in the legacy version CS4 and open it in CS6, it retains the strange layer grouping. Although it does open it still doesnt solve my problem because now I just have a horrible to manage file.
PS has anyone figured out how to fix the layer grouping issue with legacy (Cs4 and below) Illustrator files?

Illustrator CS6 crashes using Effect Stylize Drop Shadow. There's a work-around

Illustrator CS6 crashes when using Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow on a regular shape e.g. rectangle created by the Ractangle Tool.
I select the shape, apply the effect and it will crash giving this warning dialog: "The operation cannot complete of an unknown error: [CANT]". Then Illustrator CS6 crashes.
This is the crash report in Windows 7 32-bit:
Faulting application name: Illustrator.exe, version: 16.0.0.682, time stamp: 0x4f6e762b
Faulting module name: MMXCore.8BX_unloaded, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4f44e8d6
Exception code: 0xc0000005
The crash happens about 90% of the time.
Possible work-around:
Since I experienced some strange behaviour of CS6 applications before, I experimented witn running Illustrator as an administrator (elevated privileges). When I do that, I can apply the effect without Illustrator CS6 crashing. Here I go again..elevated privileges (see http://forums.adobe.com/message/4432510) .
I have to admit, this is one of the many strange behaviours in CS6 applications that make their performance and reliability very unpredictable.
Cheers,
Dave

Wade_Zimmerman wrote:
When will you users on the Window platform learn to repair your permissions the problem when installing any software is that the permissions may not be set properly and this may be caused by the way previously installed software has changed your system.
Because there's no need to do a "repair permissions" thing, that being a bizarre Apple concept. In Windows, the software installation neither "sets permissions properly" nor does previously installed software "change your system" (whatever that means). Windows installation packages run under a special account to copy files into their proper directories without having to "change system properties". It's all done automagically and managed by Windows, not by individual applications.
Wade_Zimmerman wrote:
KNow I know that with windows users it is a very unpopular premise that the permission might need to be repaired but they do from time to time and I believe unfortunately that on the Windows platform it is a manual procedure but there may be a utility that can do it for you.
Like I said, all of that makes no sense on Windows.
Wade_Zimmerman wrote:
Of course your settings folder could also be corrupt.
I did rename the Prefs, and AI did re-create it, and the SFW problem I described was resolved. Great!, I thought, until I closed AI and opened it again -- Boom! Same problem.
The problems I described happen because software developers (and the Q&A testing teams) have an arrogant attitude -- they think "I'm the King of my computer and, by God, I'm going to run my computer as the most powerful user I can be." So they do all their work under the elevated privileges of an administrator account, and are completely surprised and clueless when their software fails to run under a standard user account. (Always running one's computer under the reduced privileges of a standard user account, by the way, is the recognized Best Practice for safe computing; and in these times it is now unacceptable to require elevated privileges to run an application....)
Ken

Illustrator CS6 - Crashes when applying drop shadow

I am currently working on a mac mini with OS X 10.8.2 and version CS6 of Illustrator.
My problem is that everytime I try to preview or apply a drop shadow effect (Effects > Stylize > Drop Shadow...) it freezes.
I have done a lot of things to try and resolve this issue including quiting and restarting Illustrator. Restarting the computer. Reinstalling illustrator, which ended up being a temporary fix. I have a screen shot of the program of when I clicked on the Preview box (just insert the colorful spining wheel of death).
I also can post the Apple report if anyone whould like to see it.
Please help! Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Actually I did get it to work by deleting the .AI prefs. I will post again if it isn't a long term fix but I'm just glad that I can get back to work! Thanks Mike!
For those who might be having the same problem here's the steps I took to deleting the AI prefs:
WARNING: For those that don't know this will delete your custom unit preferences/ui settings/workspaces, etc.
1) I got the file path for my operating system: http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/preference-file-location-illustrator.html
For OS X Lion users, you'll need to unhide the users' library: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20082044-263/os-x-lion-where-did-my-library-go/
2) I just renamed and compressed the Adobe Illustrator CS6 Settings Folder. I then launched Illustrator (which created a new settings folder). Everything now works for me! Hopefully, it'll work for you too.

Illustrator CS6 drop shadow looks worst

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