2 Q's - Do I have to flatten? & Why do I lose transparency?

[Hyperlord]

Hey all - Hyper here -
Two quick q's - - Why do you have to flatten images? I hate the way flattening muddies the pic up. Makes it look rasterized.

Also - Why are all my transparencies lost when exporting to .pdf? In fact - I exported a slew of art to pdf and just wound up with horrid white boxes around most of the filters and transparencies. What gives? I bet you're gonna say I have to flatten the image first, right? Arghh!

Little background - I'm trying to make myself full color biz cards. I did all the art in photoshop and set the card layout and all the text work in illustrator.

Ok - there's my 2 brain-pickers for today~
Cheers -
-hyper- Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

 

[blueark]

I think it's a case of some software catching up with others. Basically, the problem stems from transparancy. It's a relatively new technology in PostScript terms, and not all software or drivers support it yet. That's where flattening comes in.

For now, I find the best thing to do is to keep a master copy of your artwork with all the transparancies, etc. Then, save a copy with the 'flatten transparency (preserve appearance)' box checked. This usually gives good results if you're sending your file to print. Also, use this file to create your PDFs from.

Hope this helps!

 

[Hyperlord]

Thanks for your reply - however this part of you response:
"save a copy with the 'flatten transparency (preserve appearance)' box checked" eludes me. I dont seem to see that option or box when i go to save a copy. Perhaps it is somewhere I haven't found yet?

I'm using AI 9.0 on a PC.

Would you mind shedding some light on it for me?

Thanks -
-hyper- Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

 

[blueark]

Try this:

1: File > Save As
2: Choose 'Illustrator EPS' from the 'Save as type' menu.
3: Change the version number to 8 or lower, as transparency was only introduced in version 9.
4: There should now be an option called 'Preserve Appearance' which, if selected, will flatten your artwork but any transparency effects will be simulated.

I should point out that I don't have Illustrator on this computer, so maybe some of the terms are worded differently. Hopefully it should point you in the right direction though!