Participating Frequently

Question

Sign company printing transparent objects as solid

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 11, 2022
4 replies
2107 views

I recently sent an .ai file to a sign printer. The file has some transparent boxes but they are coming out solid at their end. Is this something I have to fix? If so, how? Or is it their issue? They asked for a CMYK color mode.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Do you know what software the sign company is using? That is a very important factor.

Several different large format RIP software applications (such as Onyx Thrive, RasterLink Pro) license Adobe PDF technology in order to handle items like Adobe Illustrator-generated PDF files flawlessly. However, many sign shops vary on the kinds of applications they use on the design front end. CorelDRAW is very common at sign companies, but not every shop is using the latest versions. Moving artwork between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator is often a very hit and miss affair, even with the latest version of CorelDRAW. There is a lot of industry-specific sign making software in use (Flexi, SignLab, Gerber Omega, etc). Those applications are great for controlling vinyl cutters/plotters. But they're pretty limited at supporting various effects and typographical features that can be baked into Adobe Illustrator AI files or PDFs.

It's also possible the person handling your artwork at the sign shop is not all that technically astute. He might be doing something wrong with your artwork.

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Beverly5CAAAuthor

Participating Frequently

No. Before sending the file, I called and tried to get past the sales rep with that question and a few others. His instructions to me were to just send a vector file and we'll take it from there. I had a feeling things weren't going to go well, but this is the printer the client picked (against my recommendations I might add). It was a budgetary issue. I could also tell that he wasn't technically astute as you put it. But they are a large sign printer in Milwaukee and their production manager will be in touch with me on Monday, so I'm confident this transparency issue and one other will be resolved. It's just frustrating to work from a distance sometimes (they are two hours from me). Thank you so much for all the info on software though. Good to know.

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

It's pretty common for design departments within sign companies to get on the fan-boy train with a certain preference of software, even if the software is limited at handling customer provided assets properly. Some sign companies are pro-Adobe and others don't want to have anything to do with Adobe software. It's almost like a political thing.

I've personally been using both Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW going back more years than I want to admit. Plus, I've tried a variety of other vector graphics applications in the past (such as Deneba Canvas, Macromedia Freehand) and continue to try out rival applications currently available, like Affinity Designer, Vectornator, etc. I don't think it makes any sense to be an all-or-nothing fan of just one application. One critical reason is none of these applications have 100% feature overlap with their rivals. Some items in a graphics file will "break" when exported over into a rival application.

My workplace has multiple licenses of Adobe Creative Cloud. It's not about us being fans of the software. The situation is we can't get our work done effectively without it. We receive too much in the way of customer provided art files generated in Illustrator or other Adobe applications. This includes a good bit of assets from major companies. Big corporations are very picky with how their branding materials can be reproduced. And they tend to generate their assets in an Adobe-based environment. CorelDRAW is a very good graphics application in certain respects (very good for technical drawing work). I just don't receive many CDR files from clients.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Please tell us about the exact nature of the transparent boxes, the file you sent them and please show photos and screenshot.

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Beverly5CAAAuthor

Participating Frequently

OK. I will share all of the above soon, but my weekend begins. I promise I'll be back in touch. Thank you so much for your interest in this issue.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

It seems that you are (close to) PT (Pacific Time), Beverly.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Beverly,

I believe your friends at the sign company are flattening transparency.

Are you sending the document as AI?

I believe it is safer to send it as a PDF that retains the transparency.

Have you talked to them about it?

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Beverly5CAAAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes, it makes sense that that is what they're doing. They requested a vector file, not a pdf which I would normally have sent. I have mentioned the transparency issue to them and I'm waiting for a reply. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't something I did. I'm not sure if they have to flatten the file for their process or not, but I will ask. Thank you for your suggestion.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

You are welcome, Beverly.

Whatever happens, I hope you will report your findings.

"a vector file, not a pdf" is a strange request, because the PDF would be just as much a vector file as the AI document it is made from.

Obviously, if transparency is out of the question, you may need to adapt the artwork, but in that case they could have told you.

LinSims

Community Expert

Let me move this to the Adobe Illustrator forum for you, which is the appropriate forum for your question.

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Beverly5CAAAuthor

Participating Frequently

I thought that was where I put it but apparently not. Thank you for moving it to the appropriate venue.

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