Outer glow only

[Jason Gibbins]

Hey, I am trying to create a circle with an outer glow, but the circle itself needs to be transparent, showing only the outer glow.

However when I try to change the colour of the circle to 0% opacity, the glow effect disappears. Or if I add another circle on top (without glow) and then subtract that from the circle below it also removes the glow effect. I just can't seem to figure out how to do this.

So in short I am trying to achieve a circle with 0% opacity with a white outer glow. Is this possible? Please help me.

 

Thanks

[David in Яuislip]

Try setting the blend mode of the top circle to Erase

[dominik]

13 minutes ago, Jason Gibbins said:

So in short I am trying to achieve a circle with 0% opacity with a white outer glow. Is this possible? Please help me.

Hi @Jason Gibbins,

try this:

1. Group the circle with itself (= hit CTRL+g)
2. Add the outer glow to the group. Make sure that only the group is selected not the circle within.
3. Assign the circle a 100% black fill and set it's fill mode to subtract (in the layers panel).

This should do the trick.
d.

[Jason Gibbins]

Perfect. Thank you both for helping me 👍

[Joachim_L]

13 minutes ago, dominik said:

This should do the trick.

I am too stupid for this and I thought I followed your instructions carefully. Could you please provide a sample file?

[dominik]

5 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

I am too stupid for this and I thought I followed your instructions carefully. Could you please provide a sample file?

Try this

d.

transparent-outer-glow.afdesign

[Joachim_L]

Thanks a lot @dominik and now the same file once again in CMYK. 😀

[dominik]

7 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

and now the same file once again in CMYK. 😀

That's a valid point and proves that you are not too stupid 🙂
At least the OP didn't mention the required color space and perhaps RGB will do.

But above mentioned Erase Mode doesn't solve this either.

d.

no-transparent-outer-glow-cmyk.afdesign

[Joachim_L]

7 minutes ago, dominik said:

That's a valid point and proves that you are not too stupid 🙂

You saved my day!

P.S.: @dominik Your signature is saying you downgraded for AP and APu?

[dominik]

16 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

P.S.: @dominik Your signature is saying you downgraded for AP and APu?

Too many numbers are flying around. Fixed that. Looking forward to the next version number increase, though (but I digress).

d.

[G13RL]

@Jason Gibbins You can put a fill to the circle, apply the fx "Outer Glow" and set the opacity of the fill to 0% (in the "Outer Glow" window).

[Joachim_L]

Oh dear, this was too simple ...

[dominik]

20 hours ago, Joachim_L said:

and now the same file once again in CMYK. 😀

Hi @Joachim_L

even though @G13RL has posted a very good solution to the OP's question I could not understand why my solution seems not to work in CMYK color space.

I tried again and figured out the mistake. It is important to assign not just pure black (= 100% K) to the circle but a full black with all four colors set to 100%.

See the attached AD file.

d.

transparent-outer-glow-cmyk.afdesign

[Joachim_L]

Excellent, I guess you participated in "Jugend forscht" when you were younger?