Select the Live Paint group in your artwork.
Last updated on
Sep 11, 2025
Learn how to detect, manage, and close gaps in Live Paint groups.
Gaps are small spaces between paths. If paint leaks through and paints faces you did not intend, you probably have a gap in your artwork. You can create a new path that closes the gap, edit existing paths to close the gap, or adjust the gap options in the Live Paint group. When you merge Live Paint groups with different gap settings, Adobe Illustrator follows these rules:
- If all selected groups have Gap Detection off, gaps are closed, and gap detection is turned on with Paint stops at set to Small Gaps.
- If all selected groups have the same Gap Detection, gaps are closed, and the gap setting is preserved.
- If settings are mixed, Illustrator preserves the setting from the bottommost group, but only if Gap Detection is on for that group. If it’s off, Gap Detection turns on with Paint stops at set to Small Gaps as the default.
You can avoid gaps in your Live Paint artwork by overdrawing paths, which means you extend them past each other. You can then select and delete the excess edges that result or apply a Stroke of None to them.
Highlight gaps in a Live Paint group
Select View > Show Live Paint Gaps.
This command highlights gaps in the selected Live Paint group, based on the gap options you’ve set for that group.
Set Live Paint gap options
Select Object > Live Paint > Gap Options.
In the Gap Options dialog box, specify any of the following:
- Gap Detection: When selected, Illustrator recognizes gaps in Live Paint paths and prevents paint from flowing through them.
- Paint stops at: Sets the size of the gap that paint can’t flow through. Custom Gaps lets you specify a custom Paint stops at gap size.
- Gap Preview Color: Sets the color for previewing gaps in Live Paint groups. You can select a color from the dropdown menu or select the color from the swatch next to the Gap Preview Color to specify a custom color.
- Close gaps with paths: When selected, it inserts unpainted paths into your Live Paint group to close gaps rather than simply preventing paint from flowing through them. Since these paths are unpainted, it may appear that gaps are still there even though they have been closed.
- Preview: Displays currently detected gaps in Live Paint groups as colored lines, based on the preview color you selected.
Note
Enabling Gap Detection may slow down Illustrator when working on large, complex Live Paint groups. In this case, you can select Close gaps with paths to help speed Illustrator up again.
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