why are some files so heavily masked?

[gabagoo]

I find the odd file sent to me and its like opening a russian egg. Mask after mask after mask. What is the purpose of a file with multiple masks? I can sit for who knows how long trying to break it down...is it really necessary or is there a simpler way to deal with them?

 

[Fred Weiss]

It's just a particular way of working that some designers use who aren't concerned with the different requirements of different types of production or with anyone being able to easily edit what they've setup.

They can make a job setup more difficult to understand and they can also throw off the size readings in some applications.

If one is just printing, they usually don't present a problem other than sizing. For vinyl cutting, often the best approach is just to unmask and then delete the masking vectors. In other situations, converting them to a raster image is the easiest solution.

 

[Flame]

To wrap up what Fred said in 2 words........ dumb designers.

 

[gabagoo]

I agree but I have also found the odd time that while demasking that you can actually lose information and the way that flexi works you cant even tell. What I mean is that when I hit unmask I then get a black box that covers everything in the graphic area and even if I work in wire frame the box is solid black. The only thing you can do is delete it and try and see if anything disapears with it.

Very annoying!!!

 

[jfiscus]

That is an importing / converting issue between applications, created by the software companies to try to keep you from using another manufacuter's product. If it's too clunky / problematic to transition hopefully you'll stick with what you're using already. Or at least that's how I see it.

I deal with it everyday opening a simple EPS I created in Illustrator in Flexi puts masks onto objects that I assuredly did not put there.

 

[CrabbyOldGuy]

I think this goes way back in Illustrator when most of the designers would just cover up stray marks or objects with white instead of deleting them. All that did for the printers was to add more lines and file size. When was the last time you saw a line of copy or shadows welded together instead of overlapping text? The option is there in an easy to use tool. Do these people not know it is available? I have spent hours trying to correct and weld files from designers who should know the process.

 

[thewood]

I deal with it everyday opening a simple EPS I created in Illustrator in Flexi puts masks onto objects that I assuredly did not put there.

Yes, often times the multiple masks are created when Flexi parses files.

On the flip side, I've also dealt with files where the designer used unnecessary masks as an alternative to proper design technique.

 

[imagep]

I really dont know what a mask is for, although I see it done all the time. In 20 years of designing, I have never had an occasion where I have needed a mask in a vector file, not even when using bitmap images in a vector file.

 

[thewood]

The only times I uses masks in vector-based apps is to either achieve the effect shown below or to make a "soft crop" of a bitmap in case I want to easily undo the "crop".

 

[anotherdog]

It is usually a lack of knowledge on the part of the designer. Many designers who send me work are one-trick-ponies; they are only really comfortable in one design program. I have seen a whole 48 page book done in photoshop and someone trying to colour correct scanned images using only illustrator.

The worst has to be the vector masking of bitmaps. Drives me nuts when it would be so much cleaner with photoshop transparency. It's like a game of Ker-pluk. Pull one mask and the whole show fails...and of course buried in the mess is a spot colour they need to hit.

 

[GAC05]

It is usually a lack of knowledge on the part of the designer. Many designers who send me work are one-trick-ponies; they are only really comfortable in one design program. I have seen a whole 48 page book done in photoshop and someone trying to colour correct scanned images using only illustrator.

The worst has to be the vector masking of bitmaps. Drives me nuts when it would be so much cleaner with photoshop transparency. It's like a game of Ker-pluk. Pull one mask and the whole show fails...and of course buried in the mess is a spot colour they need to hit.

I think it is a matter of workflow, depending a lot on your source files and intended output.
Vector masking of images for me are the way to get things done quickly.
Vector masks are clean, scale well and are easy to edit and update.



wayne k
guam usa

 

[Rick]

Some files, especially some .pdf's will add masks on top of masks, or treat each compound element as a mask and then mask those groups and gradients on each letter... hard to say if this is a designer workflow thing or a crappy .pdf since there is not a whole lot of info to go on.

 

[visualeyez]

The worst is when I get a letter sized document .pdf that is somehow over 10 megs, all vector. Opening it in Illy, I find it has hundreds of thousands of paint splatter marks, just clipped off all sides of the document. All for one liitle paint splatter on the darn thing. And of course it's a spot color with transparency settings...

 

[binki]

We just went through this with someone. We find that the worst artwork comes from someone who has a product they want to sell and they do their own artwork to save money. Some of them are very creative but as mentioned, they don't understand the requirements for different applications of the artwork.

 

[BROWNDOG]

How can i explain to my designer what she is doing or not doing so i dont have to unmask 300 times to cut a simple sign, she's using illi and i'm, cutting from flexi,
Is there something that she is or isnt doing?