pre-press--dealing with transparencies
- Started
- Last post
- 11 Responses
- pepite
Pre-press questions---
I have a file with a lot of transparencies on vectors and some images, a background with a light gradient....4 colors print. They want EPS.
Everything is sent to China. No knowledgeable contact.
what do you guys do to improve/insure the quality of printed gradients and transparencies?
Getting a little confused....
Do you guys usually use the Transparency flattener preset?or any other settings?
what's the trick?
- jbranda0
Whats the native file?
- knars0
I would flatten the transparencies, background and gradient in PS. Save it as an eps and place it back in Illy or ID keeping the text and vectors.
Does that make any sense?
- BonSeff0
kick out a pdf in indesign
- MikeJ0
get some tickets at china airlines
- pylon0
Flatten all the non-text elements as a 300dpi raster (CMYK). Outline your fonts. You'll be fine.
- horton0
i frequently send print stuff overseas... have had some fantastic press results, and on the flip-side, some completely whack.
i pretty much always rasterize everything vector accept text. i'll raster in AI if its easy (although AI raster has some size limitations) or i'll export the layers to tiff and then place back into AI with text etc. on a layer ontop.
i wouldn't waste your time flattening transp's etc in AI or Acrobat. if you can't communicate with printer its much easier and more reliable results if you just make it all a raster image.
- Ditto, totally agree.pylon
- and yeah def outline fonts as pylon suggested.horton
- yup. this is the way to go.theredmasque
- jbranda0
First, make a copy of the final file and save it some where safe.
Make sure your 'raster prefs' are at 300dpi or you'll have output issues.
Transparency flatten is a must. What AI does when it trans-flattens the file it creates a likeness to what the transparency would look like by making the 'transparent part' a seperate object.
What that means is you no longer will have 'real' transparent objects but a visual art that replicates a transparent effect.
As for color, convert all your PMS or spot colors to CMYK proper. Not just 'click convert to CMYK' but look in the book for the colors that best simulate the spot into 4C process. (if you don't you can get some bad mudded color that you and the client were not expecting.)
I don't know if this is clear.
- horton0
one time i sent artwork for a garment hangtag overseas to the factory printer. the file included a small photo of a sample tag to be used as a reference for the card stock we wanted. photo was clearly labeled "for paper reference only".
long story short, a couple weeks later the press approval came back and the factory had actually recreated the artwork in the "sample" image and mishmashed the elements together with my hangtag design to create an entirely new art file, complete with logos and text off the sample photo.
it was really quite impressive. we rejected and told them to start over.
- jbranda0
I was creating hangtags for a Missy and Junior sportwear company a few years back and I sent over the artwork with "FPO" in bold bright green (45 degrees) over the greek-copy for the size and care instructions that they were supposed to insert for each style...they came back P,S,M,L with new care instructions and the 'FPO' still over everything.
- pepite0
thanks for all those good tricks. Working on it right now
- pepite0
hope Im almost there...seems to be working expect for one object in blending mode---when I flatten it, it appears, and print, as a fill---therefore loosing all the transparencies effects...
any thoughts?
is that clear?
- export your file without the text as a jpg straight from illy...?doesnotexist