images print with a nonexistent background

[Rachel_Neeley@adobeforums.com]

I am having some trouble printing images out of Illustrator. I've conferred with Epson about this (I have an Epson printer) and they sent me here assuring me that this is an Adobe issue. I thought I'd see if anyone here could help me before I try calling tech support.

The issue is this: when I place an image SOMETIMES it prints with a red background. The red background is NOT part of the image (I've opened the image in Photoshop and checked) and it is NOT part of the Illustrator file (I've placed JUST the image on an Illustrator page with no other art or text of any kind) and I still get a red overall tint to the image. It's not just a tint either -- the white areas of the image fill in with red, the black part of the image have a tinge of red, etc. It looks like the image was placed over a red block and then set to be transparent -- but it is NOT built that way at all!!!

This same thing happens occasionally with PDF files and pages I've printed out of Internet Explorer. So far, it has not happened with Quark. And it's always red.

Any ideas???

Rachel

PS -- I'm on a G4, running Mac OS 9.2.2, using Illustrator 8, Acrobat 5, IE 5. There's plenty of memory and hard drive space.

[Scott_Falkner@adobeforums.com]

Gee, it happen in Acrobat, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and Internet Explorer. If it's a software problem, I strongly suggest that it is with the printer driver, not a lagge and diverse collection of programs, most of which are designed around professional colour ouput.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

Perhaps you have a corrupt monitor profile sand you should do it over first trashing the one you have.

[Rachel_Neeley@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the responses. I did go to the Epson website and I downloaded their latest driver; it did not fix the problem. However, I did narrow the problem down to this: my printer won't print an EPS file without also printing the red background. I took that same image and just resaved it as a TIF and it prints fine. Now, I don't believe I should have to do that with every image I ever work with so I've gone back to Epson and have demanded that they look into the issue further (especially since I've done some of the leg work for them). At least I know it's not Illustrator!!!

[Scott_Falkner@adobeforums.com]

Does your printer have a PostScript RIP? If not, then you will never get desiable results printing EPS files. Try distilling the PostScript and printing from Acrobat.