Corruption of features formed by etching a metal-containing web in a continuous etch process is reduced by distorting the original design or designs of the features to compensate for localized areas subject to excessive etching during the continuous etch process. In the case of a planar speaker diaphragm, for example, the width of the portions of the trace that are in a cross-machine direction is increased to compensate for the higher etching rate caused by the motion through the etch bath. While this causes the modified trace design to appear to be distorted relative to the original trace design, the etched trace resulting from the modified trace design has improved uniformity and greater fidelity to the original trace design than if the original trace design had been used in the continuous etch process.