Help Help, anyone know anything about transparency flattening

[samjoy]

I have done a business card design that has a image in it from illustrator where the background is transparent. Printers went to print it and it is printing square border around the image, I went through all previews and checked PDF I sent them and couldnt see what it was but it shows up in indesign, window-output-flattener preview- transparent objects, as a pink area. Ive just looked at other flyers I have had printed elsewhere and transparent objects show in the projects in the same way but they all printed fine. What is happening with this printer and the flattening issue, is it my fault?

 

[apepp]

...can you use:

http://www.sendspace.com

...upload the PDF you sent them, and post the resulting download link back to tek-tips. This will make it easier to problem solve and see what we're dealing with...

many thanks,
andrew

 

[samjoy]

Many Thanks Andrew, i dont have a place to upload it at the moment, I traced the problem back to a drop shadow that was used on a object (a woman's head) that was a silhouette with transparent background, I have sent a hi-res jpeg to the printer to print to get me out of trouble!

 

[apepp]

...surprising you have had the problem, but without seeing it can't say for sure it's your PDF or the printers problem, if the PDF views fine then it is likely a printers problem. if you are sending them a PDF format 1.4 or higher then something has gone wrong their end, if you export to 1.3, then you can view the PDF in a flattened state and have a better idea of what is likely to happen when the printer uses it...

andrew

 

[macproductionartist]

We had a problem like this once. As I recall, the problem came from Adobe Acrobat. Your printer needs to have overprint preview on to get it to rip right. This was probably a bug. (I think this is available in 7, but not in 9.)

Also, you should set your ID transparency flattener settings to the highest res. Go to Edit Menu, Transparency Flattener Preset, and click on High Resolution. That may solve the problem as well.

Cheers,

Greg Ledger

 

[eugenetyson]

macproduction

In acrobat 7, overprint preview was an option to only PREVIEW the OVERPRINT in Acrobat.

In Acrobat 9 it's turned on by default.

The issue is that Printers need to turn OverPrint on in their RIP.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[macproductionartist]

Good point. Actually, overprint is a selection in Preferences.

 

[samjoy]

Thanks alot guys nice to have comprehensive info on this! It took me by supprise. Saved the image off as jpeg to print to get around it but will save this info for next time.