Illustrator Gradient Question

[k.a.s.]

I have a painted graphic that i am trying to match the fade. It is a rectangle that is black all the way around and fades to marroon in the middle. I can do a verticle or horizontle gradient, or a circular one. But how do I make one that follows the inside edges around the box. I tried an inner glow but could not get it to work right. Anyone know how to do this??? thanks in advance.

Kevin

 

[peavey123]

Thats a job for Photoshop

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Gradient mesh. Which version of Illustrator are you using?

 

[k.a.s.]

CS

 

[ProWraps™]

Thats a job for Photoshop

not anymore. illustrator can handle gradients just as well.

 

[peavey123]

*bangs head on desk* dammit! you all are right. My bad. Totally forgot about the gradient mesh tool.

 

[Bobby H]

Adobe Illustrator is limited to only linear and radial gradients. CorelDRAW can do square and cone gradients in addition to linear and radial gradients, but with the drawback of only supporting 256 steps. Illustrator's vector-based gradients feature a seemingly infinite level of steps (which is great to fight banding issues when printing).

I'm not a big fan at all of Illustrator's gradient mesh tool. It's an Illustrator-dependent effect and the effect is really only raster-based. I would just as soon create the same effect in Adobe Photoshop and have an image that is more portable to more applications.

 

[Artildawn]

IRT the mesh tool, yes, the effect output is raster, but the controls are vector which still results in better scalability than a pure raster image. Both Illustrator and Coreldraw have mesh fill tools, although as a long time Corel user I have to admit that Illustrator's is more intuitive.

 

[k.a.s.]

Thank you, I did end up playing with the mesh tool and got somthing figured out that worked OK. Thanks for the help.

Kevin

 

[All Star Graphics]

You could always use the blend tools as well two shapes two colors one gradient.

 

[Bill Modzel]

The blend tool works great like All Star said. Make an outer rectangle, fill with black. Make in inner rectangle, fill with maroon. Click the blend tool and a corner of each shape and you got it.