I don't want white to raster!

[Alick Ford]

I'm doing quite a bit of engraving logos on anodised aluminium.

My logos are black and white vector files that I created using vector magic.

The problem I have is when I am rastering, the black is a perfect finish but the white is also rastering (very lightly).

I know I should have edited the logos to have a 'no fill' where the white is present.

I was thinking of adding the white as a colour on colour mapping and setting it as no vector and no raster?

Is there a easier fix?

[Mike Null]

Are you sure your white isn't a light shade of gray?

[Joe De Medeiros]

Are you sure your white isn't a light shade of gray?

or set to CMYK instead of RGB.

[Chuck Stone]

Mike's guess would have been mine, too.
If you select 'white' from the drop down list in the fill color, it
should not raster at all. Be sure to select 'white' .. not a color
that you think looks white. (your monitor calibration might not
be 100%) Select it from the list and not the color picker or the
color wheel or whatever they call that thing.. select the word itself.

[Jiten Patel]

Alick,

When you convert something with Vector Magic, it creates a white outline object. For example, if I converted an image of say a pink doughnut. The pink doughnut would be vectorised, but Vector Magic also creates a white fill in the "o" in the centre and another white fill around the doughnut.

I dont have access to Vector Magic as I am at 9-5 work, but once you have converted what you need, there is a "magic" background eraser tool which you can click on the all the white bits to delete them and make it transparent.

Hope that helps.

[Alick Ford]

So..

I 'ungrouped all' the logo, and selected one of the white sections, and the colour was R:254 G:254 B:254 !! strange one! I think it must be vector magic thats doing this!

Jit: the newest version of vector magic has that tool, my version unfortunately does not! and $295 for the newest version is steep!

I'm going to try and set the white colour in vector magic to true white, see if that helps.

[Dan Hintz]

Many tools allow you to open up the currently used palette of colors. If you have one of those tools, combine the few close to white and combine, then set to 255/255/255.

[Jiten Patel]

So..

I 'ungrouped all' the logo, and selected one of the white sections, and the colour was R:254 G:254 B:254 !! strange one! I think it must be vector magic thats doing this!

Jit: the newest version of vector magic has that tool, my version unfortunately does not! and $295 for the newest version is steep!

I'm going to try and set the white colour in vector magic to true white, see if that helps.

Do you want to post up the file and I will see what I can do, I have illustrator at work, and Im bored!!!

[Alick Ford]

There's one of the files, I have dozens more, but i think I have come up with a solution!

Vector magic works brilliantly to convert the jpeg or whatever to a vector format, or even just clean up the image!

Then if I import to corel draw and use power trace and select 'remove all colour from image' I'm left with just the black!

[Garrett Nors]

There's one of the files, I have dozens more, but i think I have come up with a solution!

Vector magic works brilliantly to convert the jpeg or whatever to a vector format, or even just clean up the image!

Then if I import to corel draw and use power trace and select 'remove all colour from image' I'm left with just the black!

I live by Vector Magic's amazingness. I loooooooooooove this program.

[Jiten Patel]

Not sure if this has done the trick....give it a go. Sorry had to export as PDF as illustrator EPS files are too large.

[Jiten Patel]

maybe a proper version that doesnt crop it off!

[Alick Ford]

maybe a proper version that doesnt crop it off!

Certainly did the trick!
I would probably rather do all editing on my mac using vector magic and illustrator.

Did u just select all the white bits and change the colour in illustrator?

[Joe De Medeiros]

I live by Vector Magic's amazingness. I loooooooooooove this program.

I use corel/inkscape for most of my conversions, do you think Vector Magic does a better job.

[Jiten Patel]

Alick,

No I ungrouped everything, deleted the outer line which boxed the entire thing using the direct selection tool (white arrow) and then highlight the logo and used pathfinder operation exclude to minus all the little shapes from the whole logo, which leaves the final logo with no hidden bits.

Joe,

I find vector magic brilliant for converting images to vector. Obviously not perfect and they do need tweaking, but I would say better than Illustrators Live trace (which is a bold statement as I swear by illustrator!) Not sure about Corel as I dont use it, but maybe someone else can compare.