2013

Blends 247
Rotating along a curve
If you have blended along a curve, you can make
the objects rotate to match the curve.
To do this, select the ROTATE ALONG CURVE button on the BLEND Tool INFOBAR.
Blends and PDF or PostScript files
When printing or exporting to a PDF file, using a large number of blend steps can
result in large files (megabytes in some cases) which can be very slow to print or
view. If necessary reduce the number of blend steps.
Editing the shapes in a blend
The intermediate steps of a blend are calculated on-the-fly and are not selectable or
editable. Use the menu,
ARRANGE -> CONVERT TO EDITABLE SHAPES to convert the
individual blend steps to separate objects. (The result is grouped so you would need
to ungroup before editing the individual steps.) Doing this is less efficient because to
change the blend you will have to re-blend from the start object to the end object.
Color Blend Effect
The COLOR BLEND EFFECT menu on the BLEND Tool InfoBar gives you a control over
intermediate colors:
•
FADE: Fades between the two colors.
•
RAINBOW: Blends along the shortest edge of the HSV color wheel. For example, a
blend from yellow to cyan runs yellow-green-cyan. (This option has no effect
when the two colors are black, white or gray.)
•
ALT RAINBOW: Similar to rainbow except the blend is along the longest edge of the
color wheel. For example, yellow to cyan runs yellow-red-magenta-blue-cyan.
The HSV color wheel is described in Color handling (on page 159). This menu is
identical to the fill effect menu in the Fill Tool.
Viewing blends as outlines
WINDOW -> QUALITY controls how blends are displayed:
• At
OUTLINE only the start and end objects appear. The intermediate objects are
not drawn.
• At
OUTLINE WITH BLEND STEPS start, end and intermediate objects are drawn as
outline.
• At
FULL COLOR the outlines and fill colors of the intermediate objects are drawn.