Minus Front changes thickness of thin lines

[Dinah Troutner]

Hi! I'm wanting to achieve something simple: I am working on a logo that consists of a dark blue box with a white image on top, which breaks the boundary of the box on one side. (In other words, a reversed-out image.) I would like to "Minus Front" the top image, and make the whole logo one continuous shape (rather than one layered on top of another). I use "Minus Front," but because the top image has some thinner areas, it is very apparent that the shape gets a tiny bit "thinner" after I perform this function. I think that if the image didn't have these thinner areas, the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but in this case, it makes all the difference in the world. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid this miniscule alteration of the shape by using Minus Front?

[Andrew Gray]

I can only repeat that problem if the overlaping white object has a stroke which disappears after the pathfinder filter is used making the excluded portion look thinner.

How much thinner are we talking in your case?

-Andy

[Dinah Troutner]

There are no strokes in the image. Part of the image resembles a "ring" (sort of like a ring around Saturn), with only part of the ring visible. Part of this ring tapers off to a thin point, therefore making a very fine "line." Going back and analyzing the problem, I see that the use of Minus Front always takes off a "hairline's width" from your image, but in most cases, it's not even noticeable. In this case though, the hairline reduction makes a significant part of the "ring" disappear.

My last resort is to add a hairline stroke to the image, outline the path, and then Minus Front. This should compensate for the hairline reduction. However, I was hoping for another way around this problem.

[Andrew Gray]

yeah, I have repeated your issue. I have no idea why that happens or a way around it other than that you have used.

A VERY small change I have to say, but a change IS there.

-Andy