Using Photoshop, I've gotten into the habit of highlighting text labels, usually with a contrasting Outer Glow effect. I've been trying to get into the use of Illustrator for cartography, particularly for labelling since it has more sophisticated character-level effects than Photoshop. It's been hard going. In Illustrator, the Outer Glow effect is very sensitive to background color and frequently fails regardless of glow color, opacity or blend mode used. With that in mind, I've created a cheap hack to create something roughly approximating the effect in Illustrator that seems to be more reliable.

I've detailed this procedure on my blog, here.

Comments are somewhere between very welcome and begged for.