Pattern maker in CS6: always have line and gap. How do I fix it?

[ogopogo13]

Whenever I make a pattern in CS6 and repeat it there is always a line showing up on the initial boundary box.  The objects are over the boundary line and should not be a problem.  Anyone know how I can fix this?  Below you can see the line break in the pattern.

[Jacob Bugge]

ogopogo,

I see no line in the image, apart from the black one round the whole thing, and that seems to belong to the forum.

Are you sure this is more than a screen artifact?

What happens if you Save As/Print to PDF, or just print from Illy?

[_scott_]

If you are referrign to the hairline white line which appears on screen, it's due ot on-screen anti-aliasing.

You can safely ignore the white hairline if the file is destined for print. As Jaccob suggests, print the file to a postscript device to verify this.

If you need the remove the hairline for on-screen work, you might try turning off anti-aliasing in the preferences.

Another solution is to add an appropriate color fill below the pattern fill so the pattern anti-aliases to something other than white.

[Jacob Bugge]

Scott,

As Jaccob suggests, print the file to a postscript device to verify this.

If only I had been bright enough to state it expressly, instead of just assuming its implication, confident that Illy would refuse to print to anything less. I tend to forget the threads showing that it is not always the case.

[Ignacio_Lirio]

Yes, this hair line does not appear WHEN PRINTING straight from Illustrator, but if I copy this pattern and paste it on Photoshop to keep working on it, it can be Smart Object, Pixels or whatever... when appying to pasted Illustrator Pattern, the hair line appears and prints in any way

Such a big trouble!

[emeryartdesign]

You are the real MVP! I've been struggling with this for years.

[Ignacio_Lirio]

I think I found a solution, or at least a workaround.

I made a pattern with Illustrator that showed this annoying hairlines. Then, instead of copy+paste as Smart Object inside Photoshop (where I get the hairlines anyway, and it prints out!) I export my illustration as PSD , choosing not anti-aliasing in the exporting options. Then I use File > Place... inside Photoshop and the pattern appears without hairlines.

Hope it helps!

Ignacio

[carriestephens]

Thank you so very much Ignacio!  That worked best for me!

[Ignacio_Lirio]

Happy to hear that! Then, I think you wouldn't mind to click on the link "This answer was helpful" in the comment, right? ^_^

Have a fantastic day!

Ignacio

[ksfkay2000]

All the solutions that I've heard either left me with a low res looking graphic, and bad printouts. These lines cannot be ignored, because they will show up. However I was able to fix it.

The more complex the pattern, the more outlines seem to appear around the main pattern. These outlines indicate a single tile and/or sometimes a small cluster of repeating tiles in its overall matrix. A glitch that can be solved by minimizing spatial distance by rounding off those numbers with many decimal places in the HSPACING AND VSPACING (ie: .5672 can be rounded up to .6). This helps create a good starting place, before dancing around incrementing whole numbers to find your pattern's "sweet spot" where all outlines disappear. If you need to, you can work your way into numbers utilizing two decimal places such as quarters, before working deeper down into smaller fractions. This absolutely fixed my issue.

You can then copy/paste and use your pattern across all the CS6 programs.

[LuisBruna]

I recently upgraded to CS6 from CS4 and found this annoying bug. I work with patterns a lot and it was so frustrating trying to get rid of those awful lines. I even tried making the patterns manually and the bug was persistent.

The culprit in the whole process is Photoshop CS6 not Illustrator. I did many tests: first I copied from IllyCS6 to PS CS6 and had the gaps, then I tried copying from Illy CS4 and pasting into PS CS6, same bug with the gaps, until I copied fom Illy CS6 and pasting into PS CS4 and no problem. therefore I declare PS CS6 guilty of not being able to handle patterns from Illustrator.

Anyway, what I do now, since I don't want to keep CS4 installed in my mac is I follow what ksfkay2000 suggested but with a slight variation:

1.- I create my pattern without worrying about the exact position of my pattern elements (I create some patterns with lots of objects in them).

2.- When my pattern is finished I create a square or rectangle with the exact dimensions of the pattern I made (say 250px by 400px) and fill it with said pattern.

3.- I make sure the new filled rectangle's X and Y values (the position on the artboard), are an exact number without decimals (ie X=540 Y=320 or whatever but numbers have to be exact) Then copy and paste into PS CS6 and NO awful lines or GAPS!!! Yay!!

NOTE: If you manipulate the Smart Object in Photoshop either enlarging or decreasing its size, you have to make sure the X and Y values remain exact numbers, otherwise the lines will show up again.

I  hope this helps and thanks ksfkay2000 for the suggestion, which led to find this workaround.

Luis

[michaelabdesign]

No the culprit is Illustrator, I  have the lines that come out onto print even when I'm not using Photoshop.

[mariab75124826]

Great tip Ignacio. I had been going crazy over this, and had tried every possible tip I came across. Yours is the only one that actually worked.

Great!!!

[JordanR6]

Thanks! God sometimes I just want to smack these developers. ARE THEY BLIND!?!?!

[sarahh5232546]

THANK YOU!!

[ArtMonkey1979]

Thankyou for putting this issue up on the board. I to washaving the same issue. It drived me nuts. Nothing worse then seeing something like a white line and haveing no idea how it got there. The big reason I like Adobe is the high level of control they give me.

I found the turn off auto anaylising in preferences when I go to make a export for web to work well for me. Thankyou for suggesting that, Scott w.

[C_Hauger]

I recently had this same problem. Where I wanted to take my pattern from Illustrator to PS as a smart object and the tiny hairlines showed through my art.

Make sure you create your pattern on a new layer it will make this process much easier -- after you have done so you can paste it back where you want it, etc...

NOTE: all of this can be done with out ever unselecting your art, best if you don't unselect it.

Here is what I did to overcome this annoying issue:

1. Select the pattern then Object > Expand click OK on the dialog (Fill should be checked by default if not check it)
2. Select your pattern (if not already selected) then Right mouse click and ungroup
3. Now Right click and select release clipping mask (this will reveal the pattern Illustrator creates)
4. Open Pathfinder (Window > Pathfinder), Select your pattern (if for some reason it got unselected) and click Merge in Pathfinder window. (This can be intense based on the complexity of your pattern, could take a while.)

Now all the lines are gone. And the People Rejoice!

To bad you have to go through all this just to remove hairlines but at least patterns are easier.

Hope this helps!

[dinnys]

This solution finally worked for me. The others did not. Thanks C_Hauger!

However, I did remove the boxes with no fill before merging - not sure if that was neccessary, but I did it anyway.

I am working with a fairly simple pattern, but a repeat to fill an area 12x32 inches for a 300 ppi Photoshop document. Not sure if the large area created additional problems.

[Dotschko]

Just a bit of a follow up to this solution (which is one of better out there). My hairlines are occurring due to the 2nd clipping mask. When this is released they totally disappear.

If your pattern is relatively simple (pinstripe, dots etc) then just release and ungroup everything and delete the backgrounds of the sub groups (these tend to be made out of multiple boxes).

These hairlines do indeed print out, can't be pasted into Photoshop and generally make the tool way less efficient.

Another couple of tips which tend to be faster for simple patterns:

1. Create your rough pattern "mesh" within Indesign and then tighten it up with the "align" toolset. This can be very accurate and plays nicely with Illustrator.
2. A slightly less precise way would be to use "transform again" within Illustrator, first working along a row and then down vertically.

Also hope this helps!

[Giangcao]

This solution works perfectly for patterns with no transparency. But if you have transparent part the Merge command would merge the overlapped part with same color, turn it opaque and changes the design. To solve this I use Object -> Flatten Transparency for the pattern. This will render the transparency into solid color.

Hope that helps

[bippidiiboppidii]

I was having this problem but I seem to have solved it very easily. Double click on the swatch to bring up the pattern options and choose 'Size Tile to Art'. This has removed all nasty hairlines in my swatches. I am indeed rejoicing!

[Seeone]

Tried your solution. This just messed up my entire pattern when clicking Size Tile to art. When I try to make the pattern elements bigger the tile gets smailler. Which then creates gaps in the background color. This solution just caused more problems

[Monika Gause]

In most ases it's just a screen redraw problem.

So: what exactly do you need the pattern for that the hairlines cause trouble for you?

[Seeone]

No, its not a re-draw. See my pattern above, inside the Orange tones, there is a black cross section line that I didnt create, you could go into the pattern and try to cover it up or remove it but you are making more work for yourself as this shouldnt be happening in the first place. 

Solution: Illustrator > Preferences > General > Uncheck "Anti-Alias Artwork" and voila! Lines are gone!

[michaelabdesign]

I have tried this and find that when I unlock the anti alias the pattern becomes jagged and I need it smooth