Illustrator CS - Flattening/Transparency issues

[Vicky_Foster@adobeforums.com]

Hello,

Regarding flattening of transparent objects in Illustrator CS (on PC--Windows XP Professional)... When including, say, a cut-out image from Photoshop in my Illustrator document, I get a "box outline" around the cut-out image when printed. Everything is in CMYK, I'm using "high resolution" in the Flattener settings, and when I preview the document on screen (through the "transparency" mode of the flattener pop-up), the box isn't there. However when it goes to print, either through IA or InDesign (where I've also set the flattener setting to hi-res), the outline of a box is present (surrounding the cut-out image).

I've also had similar issues when I've attempted to use soft shadows on vector or bitmap images (a white box appears around the images--where I've added soft shadows--when printed).

Any advice as to how to get rid of said boxes?

Thanks in advance!

Vicky

[Dimitar_Zhekov@adobeforums.com]

In first place set your document raster effect settings (This is in Effects menu) to 2400 ppi resolution. Leave Anti-alias and Create Clipping Mask options unchecked. In the same menu set Background to Transparent option. Then create your own Transparency Flattener Preset (in Edit menu). Give the option Raster/Vector option to be 100% Vector, Line Art to be 2400 ppi, Gradient and Mesh to be at 300 ppi, and leave other options unchecked. Name your preset. Then Save the File as eps. In the Dialog Box for Saving File as eps, for Transparency choose to Preserve the Overprints and choose the new preset (that you just created). Then save your file. In InDesign you can use hi-res setting when you print your files. This is what I do with my files... It works very nice... Sorry for my bad English...

[Vicky_Foster@adobeforums.com]

Wow, THANKS Dimitar!!! Looks great!!! The numbers you gave work perfectly. Thanks for solving my issue!

:-) Vicky

[jaime_ash@adobeforums.com]

Dimitar,

I was following your instructions and was not able to select the new custom preset in the Save As EPS dialog box. The Preset option is grayed out! Any idea why that might be?

[Dimitar_Zhekov@adobeforums.com]

This mean that you don't have transparent objects in your artwork. You can check that in Flattener Preview palette. This is in Illustratro CS. In Illustrator 10 you must copy C:\Program Files\Adobe\Illustrator 10\Utilities\Flattener Preview Folder in Plugins folder, Illustrator must be closed. Then start Illustrator 10 and you will have Flattener Preview pallette in Windows menu...