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Drop shadow "bounding box" printing

pjjester

New Member
File was created in Illustrator. Copy has drop shadows. File was saved as a TIF. SOME of the corners of the drop shadow "bounding boxes" (for lack of better(?) term) are printing. See attached pic. (and only SOME of those that are printing are viewable on-screen). What's going on? How do we prevent this from happening again? Should we only apply drop shadows in Photoshop?
 

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  • Quantum Restoration print errors 004.jpg
    Quantum Restoration print errors 004.jpg
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Gino

Premium Subscriber
Without getting into all the ins-n-outs… simply take it over to Photoshop, flatten it and bring it back over. Quickest and easiest way to solve the problem. Add your contour cut and start printing and cutting.
 

pjjester

New Member
Gino,
Hold my hand a bit. I'm doing this legwork for someone else. Are you saying I can still create the file in AI. Save it as a *.AI? Import into PS? Then do what??
???
Can you provide step by step?
Thanks,
Paul
 

Flame

New Member
Just export the whole file as a JPEG or TIFF, and then bring it back into Illy (or whatever you're using to print) and then you won't have that box. The problem is that you have layers of raster and vector images, those corners show where the raster ends and the vector begins (basically).
 

bigbly

New Member
you can just open the ai in photoshop if you want to rasterise it, then check the offending boxes.. but why not just save as eps and send that to the rip? opening in photoshop then ripping is kind of like ripping the thing twice
 

iSign

New Member
what media is that? Canvas? ...looks nice.

If you create in illy... export as a .tif...

...even if you can't anticipate how or why that happened so as to eliminate causing it in the first place... you should be able to open in photoshop & delete it. I'm not sure how or why it happened, but could it have been seen in illy? ..Do you have photoshop?, if so, open, select & delete, resave as .tiff... & print!
 

iSign

New Member
what brand/supplier?
is it sunbrella?
what printer do you use? Does the supplier provide profiles?

I use a canvas called Picasa from Advantage Sign Supply. It's about $1.10 per sq. ft. ...pretty nice stuff, but kinda stiff. Yours looks more like Sunbrella
 

_SAi_

New Member
What program do you use to print? I always save Illustrator files as .eps to maintain crisp edges and eliminate problems like yours when printing. Keep the .ai and trash the .eps when job is done.

It's a little more time consuming for ripping and saving, but I think it's worth it!
 

scott pagan

New Member
it's due to color correction from the RIP output. the newer Adobe drop shadows make raster images that save with the original vector graphics in the file. when the RIP output adds color correction (ICC profiling) some cc's have different color rendering for vector and raster images (as was our case). in the RIP change the ICC values for the raster and vector to match each other. this will eliminate the white faded box area around any of the drop shadow images.

another RIP option thing to check is spot color replacement. our RIP (onyx posterhouse) will alter vector color to offer a more pleasing color match that may be different than the raster image that Adobe saved in the file.

you can test w a small simple file and see if that corrects the problems.
 

bees

New Member
I'm having the same problem here.

Designing in Illustrator CS2, and RIPing in Flexi 7 Production Manager on a Mimaki JV3-160SP.

Here are the results of printing transparencies:

tempgradientripscan1yl6.jpg



Here's a link to the eps: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ytyn1o

Illustrator is using the US Web Coated (SWOP) V2 CMYK profile, and Production Manager has the same CMYK profile for input. I'm working in the CMYK document mode. I've tried many things to fix this, from trying almost every legacy format of eps/pdf/ai to testing an ONYX trial (Onyx experienced the same problem). I did not have a problem printing the same document on my old Roland printer through their versaworks software, however that is no longer an option. After talking with SAi, I was told that the problem was with how Illustrator outputs the documents. They anticipate a fix for Flexi 8 at an unspecified time and do not plan on fixing the problem in Flexi 7.

Alternatively, can anyone recommend better software for just a RIP and/or cut solution? Currently I design in Illustrator, RIP in Flexi, and cut in SignLab. I would like to design in Illustrator, as it's excellent for that, but need to replace the other software. The SignLab software I've tried has been pretty horrible in almost every aspect, though we only use it for cutting.

Cutting still mostly works for us, so finding a proper RIP solution (or fixing Flexi 7) is the priority. Something with decent cutting abilities would be a nice bonus.
 

bees

New Member
I only have one Flexi license, and have SignLab on all the other machines. Flexi doesn't work right for me yet, so unless I can find a fix for the transparency issue I won't be needing any more Flexi licenses.
 

scott pagan

New Member
Bees, re-read my post. Illy is creating a raster image for the dropshadow that includes the background color. if your onyx production manager has a different output profile rendering intent for CMYK vs RGB, then swith them to be the same rendering intent (this is on the 2nd tab in advanced options, under "change profiles").
if those settings match, check into the spot color replacement under "preview and size>properties>postscript" and uncheck.
this will allow onyx to see the illy vector and raster layer without: a)having conflicting ICC profile rendering intents, and b) will not alter the vector spot color by using the spot color replacement.
re-post if you're still having this issue.

as for your software recommendations, i use cs2 (illustrator/photoshop/sometimes indesign), onyx rip, and MGE's i-cut for optical registration diecutting.
 
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