Illustrator: Grain effect goes outside the edge of the shape

Question

I'm having some issues with the grain texture. I achieved the effect I wanted (gradient on a shape with grain texture) but the grain goes outside of the shape a bit.

The problem is most noticeable in the circle but I tried many shapes and it persists.

I did this:

1. Duplicated the shape and placed it in front of the original (ctrl-c and ctrl-f)
2. Applied a gradient
3. Effect > Texture > Grain on that same shape
4. Finally, I set the shape on multiply mode

Does someone have any idea why this is happening? I'm using Illustrator CC 2019, I have the document raster effects in High 300.

Answer 1

The Grain Effect in the Texture menu is a raster effect. So the entire shape gets pixelated.

Also, you are zoomed in to 800% so you are seeing that pixelation even with your Document Raster Effects set to High/300.

Try this- go to the Appearance Panel with your shape selected (and the zoom still set to 800%) and click on the eyeball on the left side of the panel for the grain effect to hide that effect.You will see those edges sharpen right up to their original vector-selves.

So this is not an anomaly and expected when you use a raster effect on a vector shape. And yes, it is definitely more visible on curves. This may not be a problem when viewed at 100% zoom.

One thing you could do is create another circle (or shape) a bit smaller than the shape with the grain effect and use it as a clipping mask- which is vector and will make the edges appear sharper.