Tranparency + Glow = a blurry mess

Lee Short

What I'm trying to do is to draw some circles and triangles, unfilled in the center, with transparency. I also want them to have glow on the edges to increase visibility.

If I just draw the circles, then apply transparency and glow (either order), I get a blurry mess when printed (but not as rendered on the screen). I start out by drawing a dark red unfilled circle. Fine: I have a red unfilled circle. Add transparency. Fine: I have a transparent red unfilled circle. Add glow. On the screen, this is exactly as I want it: a transparent red unfilled circle with a border of white. When printed (either to printer or PDF), I get a transparent unfilled circle that is all one color (pink).

I tried replacing the glow with a white circle sized to provide a border around the red circle. Same thing: on the screen, it looks great, when printed, it is blurred out.

Anybody know how to make this work?

CC Version 3.40, on Windows 7, with DD3 + some annuals + Symbol Set 2. Dungeon style is Lighted Dungeon.

thanks, Lee

Joachim de Ravenbel

I have always found that glow is a bit tricky with entities of linewidth 0.
Is your circle Hollow filled ? In that case try to give it a width by changing the linewidth and the fill style (if you keep Hollow, you'll just get two thin circles).

On the other hand, printed maps are not always the same as on the screen. Before printing, I always export to png to check.

Does it help ?

Lee Short

Exporting to JPEG/PNG seems to work as expected. Given that I have a number of similar maps, that's a somewhat painful workaround, but it's better than taking it to Photoshop and trying to precisely position the symbols there.

The red circle is Line Style Solid, Fill Style Solid, Line Width .15

When I try replacing the glow with a white outline circle, it is Line Style Solid, Fill Style Hollow, Line Width .15

Ralf

Lee, can you send me the map you're working on (ralf@profantasy.com)? I'd like to take a look at this problem.

Does printing to pdf create the same kind of problem?

Lee Short

File sent. Printing to PDF does create the same kind of problem.