Transparency Issues

[lynnz]

Hi All,
I just worked on some pizza boxes - major graphics and transparency involved. The illustrator files were 1.6 gig each and I couldn't even save them as eps. The problem is I needed to rip and trap them in Nexus and when I tried through pdf the transparency areas were all white boxes. I know I need to save them as PDF 1.4 or greater to NOT flatten, but I could not get them to work. It was suggested that I save out all the cts back to photoshop at the size there were needed and relink them to make a smaller file. Will merely saving them as EPS solve my transparency issues or is there more involved?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
thanks in advance

Lynn

 

[almaink]

How big were the resulting PDF files? Did you try to save them as eps's from Acrobat? Most times if transparency is present saving as eps's will not give you what you expect because of flattening. Does your rip have a PDF trap engine?

 

[lynnz]

Hi Almaink,
I'm using Nexus to trap the files and uses a Raster trap - does that help? The pdfs were about 500mb and I never thought to save them back out as eps... wouldn't I be compromising quality?
This is all very confusing to me.
Thanks for your help!
lynn

 

[T]

The "Raster" trap using Nexus is going to try to flatten the PDF, (unless you use Nexus Total Rip) so you might as well do the flattening in the native application and not let Nexus struggle with this. If you have a 1.4 PDF already, try to flatten this in Acrobat or like said: Save as a postscript first.

 

[lynnz]

Hi T,
I'm not familiar with Nexus Total Rip but I will check into it. I tried flattening the Illust. file but turned all my blacks to cmyk and caused a few other funny looking things. Will try saving as PS and see how that works. Thanks for the suggestions, I really need the help.

lynn

 

[Prepper]

Optimize?

Optimize?

This may or may not help your situation but we recently found pdf files that wouldn't work when trying to rip\trap them would work if we opened in Acrobat and optimized them first. Good luck.

 

[lynnz]

Another hint I will certainly look into - thanks EVERYONE

 

[cmccue]

Lynnz,
When you save the PDF from Illustrator, turn OFF "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" to reduce file size (leaving this option on saves the original Illustrator file within the PDF, and can result in much larger PDFs).

White boxes mean that transparent areas are interacting with spot color content. To correctly image this, you need to turn ON PostScript overprint on the RIP (assuming the content is intended to print as spot). If it's created as spot, but intended to print as process, convert all the spot colors to CMYK in the original Illustrator file and there should be no white boxes.
Hope this helps; keep us posted.

 

[lynnz]

Hi cmccue,
I did remember to turn off "Preserve Illustrator..." before making the pdf. It was the only way to save the PDF small enough to work with. THe job prints CMYK and spot so I had to be careful. I'm not sure how to turn ON Postscript overprint in the RIP, but I'll do some looking. Unfortunately this time around I ran out of options on my own and had to outsource the job - the only consolation is to find out that they are struggling with it too. I really need to know how to better handle these situations in the future.
Thanks for your help I really appreciate it.
lynn

 

[UncleSam]

Nexus PDF Processor upgrade

Nexus PDF Processor upgrade

Looks like you need to ask your boss to add Nexus PDF Processor so that you don't need flatten your PDF and keep the transparency PDF all the way from PDF Trapper to RIP to 1 bit tiff file. You can blame Adobe because they are pushing people to use PDF with all kind of transparency effects and throw away the postscript format.

 

[Tech]

Looks like you need to ask your boss to add Nexus PDF Processor so that you don't need flatten your PDF and keep the transparency PDF all the way from PDF Trapper to RIP to 1 bit tiff file. You can blame Adobe because they are pushing people to use PDF with all kind of transparency effects and throw away the postscript format.

The real issue isn't PDF itself but the poor transparency methods in which designers used to construct their files. I'll have fun tomorrow morning trying to decipher why printer kicked back some designer files with unwanted color effects after illustrator files are flattened... I know it dues to the fact this designer used various color modes to achieve a certain color she wanted and hide some unused stuff under her finished work.

 

[almaink]

I agree with Tech here, to many people using transparency the wrong way and causing issues. I have a PDF trap engine, so I don't flatten, and I still have issues. Stacking order and use of both RGB, Spot, and process color modes seems to be the biggest culprit. Laziness another, like lets make this PMS box 20% transparent instead of just using a % of the spot color. Lots more issues with Quark transparency that most of Adobes applications tho. Illustrator being the exception.

 

[lynnz]

I agree with you both! Transparency seems to be the new "Cool" thing in design. Almost everything I get in has transparency - this particular carton was a monstrocity!!!!!! I sent it out to a prep house to have them do it with the thought that they are more knowledgeable in how to handle this sort of situation - they are struggling with it too (this is their 3rd day working on this project (8-different). I see why they say the printing industry is one of the most stressful! OK I feel better now.
thanks guys!!
lynn

 

[michaelejahn]

@ UncleSam,

Before I would blame Adobe for tossing away a 30 year old programing language (PostScript) - I would be thanking them for creating the PDF specifcation and a free viewer (Acrobat) and making a computer platform independednt file format (PDF) which could support things like the notion of Trim and Bleed, Layers, JBIG and JPEG2000 compression - and transparency, DeviceN (Where I can properly representa duotone in an exchangeable file)

Then, after haning up the phone, I would then call the fine folks at Nexus and as them to consider switching from the "non-Adobe licenced" clone rip, and ask them to licence and implement a true Adobe PostScript RIP that properly supports the things that are now standard (as in ISO standard) in the PDF Specification - and PDF/X-3, 4 and soon 5.

Adobe did not push people - they do not sell any real workflow systems - Agfa, Kodak - these vendors PUSHED Adobe to develop a better file format that they could use for high end prepress environments.

@ Lynnz

Sounds like you have a wopper on your hands - save as EPS will indeed force the Adobe Illustrator application to convert all transparency settings to a set of new flattened objects - this may provide a path to your nexus RIP - be sure to pick PostScript 3 - These new objects to sometimes create small stitcing artifacts so be sure to proof that EPS. In a pefect world, you would export as PDF/X-3 and send that to the RIP

 

[Joe]

Hi All,
I just worked on some pizza boxes - major graphics and transparency involved. The illustrator files were 1.6 gig each and I couldn't even save them as eps. The problem is I needed to rip and trap them in Nexus and when I tried through pdf the transparency areas were all white boxes. I know I need to save them as PDF 1.4 or greater to NOT flatten, but I could not get them to work. It was suggested that I save out all the cts back to photoshop at the size there were needed and relink them to make a smaller file. Will merely saving them as EPS solve my transparency issues or is there more involved?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
thanks in advance

Lynn

As stated by T, Nexus PS/PDF Interpreter is going to struggle with this. If you have the Nexus Import available it does a much better job of flattening than the PS/PDF Interpreter.In our Nexus we have the Import module at the front of the workflow. Import flattens and converts to an artpro file and that is converted to an EPS that then gets dumped into the PS/PDF Interpreter. It eats PDF's with transparency up.

 

[lynnz]

Thanks Joe,
I have lots of questions for esko right now, maybe they can help me get set up with this right away - there are so many jobs that come through this way in the packaging industry that something needs to be done SOON.

 

[jjsportz]

Here is a little trick that might help. Move all of your vector art to a separate layer any art without raster effects applied. Put this layer on top. Create a second new layer and place a "white" ct from photoshop (just create a white box in photoshop and save out as a .eps or tif) Enlarge the white ct in Ill. to cover your raster art and raster effects. Set the white ct multiply. What you are doing is flattening all the raster stuff and leaving the vector stuff to trap. Hokey I know but that is what we use here.

 

[gerry89]

Open the Ill file and put all text and logos on a top layer. Turn that layer off and open the eps file in photoshop. flatten the file there. Save as a tiff. Open back the ill file, Place the image in there Delete the bottom layer with all the stuff, Keep the top layer with the logos and text. This way the file will be flat. lots of work but works good.

 

[disbellj]

I got old Nexus 7.5, and if this was my job, I would set my transparency flattener settings in Illy to:
2400 DPI lineart, 300 DPI CT, and check all boxes.

Export PDF/X-1a with the new transparency flattener settings, making sure what needs to be spec'd as CMYK is here, and what is needed as Spot is spec'd here.

In Nexus, in the Raster Page workflow, in the Band to PSTI module, I would set LW resolution to 2400, LW to CT ratio to 8 (2400/8=300).

Also in Band to PSTI module, I would try using PSTI Mode 'HighQuality'. This makes it where when two CTs butt, the edge is made in LW. This "edge" that's made is too thin a lot of times, so that there's just not enough trap (not enough LW to trap at the "edge"). If the trapping is not good enough, I would then try using PSTI Mode 'Antialias'. This will make the edge to be like Photoshop, and so a trap is made by doing this (just like if you look real close in Photoshop, you can see when one color blends into the next, and this blended area, even if 1 pixel wide, IS trap (300x.003" trap = 0.9 pixels)

On my platesetter, I would set 2400 DPI resolution.

In fact, I have done all this years ago, and I don't have many problems at all. I just come here to the forums when I see new versions out of programs so that I can see what problems people are having, and see if I can help at all/give input.

Hope this helps you on your next job you have like this, so you don't have to send it out to someone else.

Don

 

[UncleSam]

Adobe PDF Engine

Adobe PDF Engine

@ UncleSam,

Before I would blame Adobe for tossing away a 30 year old programing language (PostScript) - I would be thanking them for creating the PDF specifcation and a free viewer (Acrobat) and making a computer platform independednt file format (PDF) which could support things like the notion of Trim and Bleed, Layers, JBIG and JPEG2000 compression - and transparency, DeviceN (Where I can properly representa duotone in an exchangeable file)

Then, after haning up the phone, I would then call the fine folks at Nexus and as them to consider switching from the "non-Adobe licenced" clone rip, and ask them to licence and implement a true Adobe PostScript RIP that properly supports the things that are now standard (as in ISO standard) in the PDF Specification - and PDF/X-3, 4 and soon 5.

Adobe did not push people - they do not sell any real workflow systems - Agfa, Kodak - these vendors PUSHED Adobe to develop a better file format that they could use for high end prepress environments.

Hi michaelejahn, don't get me wrong, I love the idea of PDF for cross platform and soft proofing. They certainly a better format compare to Postscript. But I don't thank the vendors pushed the Adobe because all the vendors waited for so many years (at least 5 years) for a solution to support PDF 1.4 or up version natively. Adobe just came out PDF Engine for vendors to use it in their RIP without flatten the PDF to 1.3 or X1A format in 2007 when all the designer jump ahead to use all the nice transparency feature that built-in in CS versions. Actually, Artwork Systems' Nexus Rip support transparency PDF without flattening it 2 years before Adobe come up with PDF Engine. They are the first one to support all the ISO spec too (They own Enfocus too). The problem lynnz have is that maybe he don't have the right module in his Nexus to rip the transparency PDF. He maybe still using raster workflow.