Graphic Design Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for Graphic Design professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I have a simple shape in Illustrator that has two curved edges, two straight edges, and four sharp corners:
I want to round off the sharp corners a bit like so (kinda sorta approximated by the Feather effect).
Effect -> Stylize -> Round Corners doesn't work because it gets rid of the curved edges and makes straight lines instead.
Is there a way to have Illustrator round the corners of a shape with curves?
This does alter the original shape. If that bothers you, this isn't for you, but it's a much easier solution than doing it manually.
Change the black stroke to the same color as the fill:
Up the stroke a bit and then give it a "Round Join" corner in the Stroke palette:
Outline the stroke:
Merge the stroke and the fill in the Pathfinder palette:
Add the black stroke back in:
And you should be all set.
There's no inherent method within Illustrator to do this. At least not well. You'll have to manually add anchors and create curves.
You could draw circles at the intersections and then use the Shape Builder Tool to remove the outer points..... Option/Alt-clicking those points at the corners will remove them using the Shape Builder Tool after the circles are in place. The size of the circles would determine how round the corner is.
Better solutions may be to use the Round Any Corner script, which is free.
Or look into getting the VectorScribe plug in from Astute Graphics. It's not free, but it is absolutely worth the cost.
Add points on either side of the corner, then delete the original point:
Use the Convert Anchor Point Tool to fine-tune the curve and get the look you want.
Rinse and Repeat. Obviously not automatic, but if nothing else works it'll do the trick.
I would definitely use the Round any corner script.
1. DL round any corner Script package ( It includes round any corner script )
The above site has been up for a long time, but just in case, here's a link to adobes website with the same script.
2.
Select your object. You can use Selection tool or Direct selection tool. This script can also round individual corners, so if you ever want to do that, just use Direct selection tool to select just the points you want to make round.
In this case I've selected the whole object.
3.
Load the script. From the top menu: File > Scripts > Other scripts...
or hotkey ( in Mac ) fn + cmd + F12 ( By default you're gonna need the fn key to be able to push F12 )
4.
Give the value for radius.
That's it.
A similar question has been asked before. Same solution will work for you:
RoundAnyCorner script <-- direct link to the zip file
You won't regret installing that handy little utility!
