Transparency printing issue

[halflight]

Hi everyone, looking for some help with an issue that's been driving me crazy.

I'm clipping an image away from its background in Photoshop. I'm doing so by using the pen tool to create a path, turning that path into a selection, feathering the selection, inverting the selection, and finally deleting the selected area. I'm then saving this as a PSD file.

When I place this file into Illustrator (or InDesign, for that matter) everything looks fine - the image is clipped out and feathered. When I go to print, there is a semi-transparent box where the background of the image used to be, thus changing the color of the background which I've placed my image on.

I've always used clipping paths in the past and never had any problem dropping them into Illustrator, but this one needs a feathered edge and I'm pretty sure I can't feather a path.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

HL-

 

[apepp]

...ensure the color background isn't a spot color...

...have you color management converting in the printer, illustrator or both?

...saving to pdf 1.4 or higher and printing from acrobat (print as image) any different?


From Indesign:
Create a Transparency Flattener Preset that rasterizes everything if you print from illustrator to a desktop printer:

Edit ? Transparency Flattener Presets, click on “High” as a starting point, and then click “New.”

In the ensuing dialog box, yank the raster/vector slider all the way to the left.

Set the linework resolution to the printer’s res (say, 600), and set the gradient/mesh resolution to, oh, 150.

(I think you’ll find shadow appearance satisfactory at 150. If not, go to 300.)

Save as a new Flattener Preset.

File ? Print, and under Output, choose Composite CMYK, and CHECK the “Simulate Overprint” checkbox. Under Advanced, select your all-raster flattener.

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...more info here:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=321795&sliceId=2

Andrew

 

[halflight]

Andrew,

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'd spent so much time trying different things in Photoshop that, honestly, I didn't even stop to think about my printer. Even if I had, I'm not sure I would have known what to do. I turned off color management and everything is printing perfectly, so thank you!

HL-

 

[apepp]

...no problem, it is something a lot of people miss...

...there are a few areas that want to control color, it can become tricky to problem solve...

...the rule is that you either have the application controlling color or the printer driver, but not both. When using different types of paper it is better to manage it via the application...

...it is also beneficial to have your applications synchronized so that color conversions are consistent, this can be done via the bridge application...

Andrew