Problems with opening layered Photoshop files in Illustrator

[Eugene Reisch]

I have created 3 A4 activity sheets in Photoshop, all having a mixture of vector shapes, text and some bitmap imagery

I want to open them in Illustrator and save them out as PDFs

One of the PSDs opens in illustrator fine, retaining all layers, live text and vector shapes.

The other 2 don’t. They open as one flat image. I’ve checked I have the right settings selected when opening them (same checkboxes selected as the PSD that does work) but no matter what, they both open as flat images without editable layers.

What am I missing? There must be something different between the PSD that does open with layers and the 2 that don’t, but I’ve no idea.

All 3 are the same size, all CMYK, same bit  depth and actually have largely similar content.

What could be different about these 2 PSD files that prevent them from opening into Illustrator with layers?

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

If your PSD file has some effects or transparency blending then Illustrator cannot do that natively and in order to preserve the appearance will flatten the file.

[Eugene Reisch]

Yep, so I wnet through one of the 'failing' PSDs and turned individual layers and effects off, resaved then tried to open... did this until I found the culprit.

It was a layer group/folder with a 'colour overlay' effect - once I merged those layers and thus got rid of the layer effect the file then opened in Illustrator fine.

The curious thing however, is that the PSD that opend first time also had this same layer group with the same effect (a logo lock-up used across all 3 PSDs), so although I've solved my issue this time, there seems to be no consistant reason why one of the PSDs worked and one failed.

Anyhoo... job doen for today!