Photo looks fine on screen, but prints with strange discoloration.

[OBAMarketing]

I designed 15 similar postcards for work to introduce our job foreman to customers. When the printed materials came back, the background shape outline was cutting through the photo even though the photo was layered on top. I asked the company to help, and they said there was a clipping mask on the file that the printer couldn't read. I didn't put one on the file and there was nothing to release, but the company somehow fixed it for me and sent new ones. The new ones had a burred issues, so I asked or a refund. Now I'm back to square one with designing the postcards myself.

No matter what I do (rasterize, flatten, change the entire background, start from scratch, use a different version of the photo, etc.) the foreman look normal on screen and are discolored when printed. Now I've made the whole section on Photoshop and inserted it into Illustrator and this still isn't working. It prints fine in Photoshop too, but once it's on the postcard in Illustrator, it messes up again. I've attached photos of several of the printing issues.

I hope this all makes sense. Please help if you can! Thanks!

[Mike_Gondek]

Hard to say would have to see the files. Maybe the photos have an overprint[tin set int the attributes panel. Try view >> overprint preview to see what this looks like when printed and the overprints are honored.

Feel free to post a link via dropbox to a sample file and we shoddy be abel to tell help you better.

[OBAMarketing]

Dropbox - Foreman Info Cards_Ben.ai

Here's a link to one of the postcards! Thanks!

[jdanek]

What format are the image files?  It looks like the backgrounds are still in the file when they should be transparent ( as seen in your first screen shot in your post ).  These are simple files, but may have some constructs in the image files that are interacting adversely with the intent of the Illustrator file.  Open the Photoshop files and see what is going on in the layers and paths dialogs.

[Mike_Gondek]

When I open the file I get this, and click ignore (which is likely what your printer has to do)

So hard to tell what file format you had. And I get the image as embedded. So I would use the unembed command, and save this to a .psd format. (not sure what your printer did at this point)

So I would stay away from CC libraries, and talk to your printer for how to best work with them. The are usually in one of 2 camps

• QUALITY - send over you .ai files, along with links so they can correct, trap, enhance and control anything they need to
• LEAST AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS - send over press ready .pdfs so all they do is RIP the file