(AD) Brushes, strokes, what are my options

[babmo]

I've created an illustration on the iPad, using brush ink pen strokes. When I wanted to expand the strokes, nothing happened (Maybe it is a good idea to tell a user what didn't work and why, could save him a few Google trips). So I tried to export the design to work on it with Illustrator. To my surprise in the PDF, SVG, EPS exports the strokes were expanded, but in the crudest way possible — straight paths aren't straight, rounded endings cut off, but best of all, the brush stroke applied to them was not the ink pen I used, but a simple monoline stroke.

So at this point I'm only trying get to the actual paths/brush strokes to work on it in Illustrator. Surely, I thought, AD on the desktop will be able to help here. Opened up the iPad file, ink pen is gone. Ok, no matter, just give me those strokes — copied to Illustrator: they are rasterized. Exported to EPS: rasterized again. Unchecked anything remotely related to rasterizing: yeah, good old expanded monoline strokes. I applied the most basic pen stroke to all brush strokes, they still come out as expanded. 

Is there any way to get those paths? How would I get the artwork to a printer? None of the export options is remotely adequate to send to print. Are they just extremely poor, or am I overlooking something basic? I'm on a deadline and would blow it, if I had to recreate the artwork.

[Gabe]

HI @babmo,

Any chance you can attach the .afdesign file in question?

Thanks

Gabe. 

[DM1]

@babmo When you used the Expand stroke did you first select the stroke? Then after using Expand stroke you may need to go and add a colour to the stroke outline in order to see it. Worked for me on both pen and brush.

[babmo]

3 hours ago, GabrielM said:

Any chance you can attach the .afdesign file in question?

@GabrielMNot the file in question, because I'm bound by NDA, but this test file has the same problem. Although this time AD Desktop matches the brush, but that's not the issue. Also attached the resulting EPS.

 

@DM1 Thanks for taking time for this, yes the strokes were selected. A monoline pencil path expands fine, the problem appears when you use brush strokes.

Untitled.afdesign

Untitled 2.eps

[Gabe]

Thanks. You're using a textured brush, and you cannot expand stroke on brushes that use textures. It's basically impossible because the texture is raster, and that would require an auto-trace feature, which we do not have. You can only expand stroke on non-textured brushes. Sorry

[babmo]

I figured that, but is there a way to get just the unexpanded strokes to another app? They‘re just paths after all.

[Gabe]

54 minutes ago, babmo said:

They‘re just paths after all.

True, but you cannot export them as paths with texture. You can either have paths(with no texture) or texture - rasterised (with no paths). 

[babmo]

Well how can I export them without the texture? Every time they come expanded, I need the raw paths.

[Gabe]

You would have to change all the strokes from a textured brush to a  solid  style line: 

[babmo]

Okay, that worked, thanks. Of course I will have to reapply brushes everywhere, but at least I don‘t have to recreate all paths.

[Gabe]

We know it's not the most elegant way to do it, but at least there is a workaround.

[babmo]

It‘s really just a bandaid. I‘m curious, what would be an illustration production workflow with AD? Obviously using brushes makes the artwork unusable for printers or other people working on it with different apps. Rasterizing is not always (almost never) an option. So is the artwork just supposed to sit in the app and do nothing? (It may sound harsh, but rest assured I‘m just respectfully curious).

[Gabe]

16 hours ago, babmo said:

So is the artwork just supposed to sit in the app and do nothing?

Not really, no. 

 

16 hours ago, babmo said:

Obviously using brushes makes the artwork unusable for printers

A printer will not print vectors directly, so rasterization happens at one point anyways. So I don't see why this would be an issue. 

I've had a quick go in Illustrator and it does the exact same thing - You can either have Raster brush, or vector with no texture. 

[babmo]

7 hours ago, GabrielM said:

A printer will not print vectors directly, so rasterization happens at one point anyways. So I don't see why this would be an issue. 

I've had a quick go in Illustrator and it does the exact same thing - You can either have Raster brush, or vector with no texture. 

It may depend on the actual brush you use, but usually Illustrator expands the strokes just fine:

 

From collaboration to later editability to file size limitations there are a million reasons not to rasterize vectors until the actual plate production.