Printing Gaussian Blurs??

[kellyportfolio]

Hello, Yes another question from me. :)

I need to get some more promotional postcards printed at GotPrint.com and before I do so, I need to ask a printing expert about how to manage my file so my image that has gaussian blurs in it actually prints as a gaussian blur.

The image I am attaching shows an image of my problem. I do an illustration and it looks like the image on the right. And when I get my illustration printed at the printer, sometimes the gaussian blur doesn't stick and it ends up looking like the woman on the left with circle cheeks. I just want to avoid getting 1000 postcards that didn't print the effects I had intended. Any advice? Thanks so much!

[Mr.Red]

Make sure you flatten your artwork. This should take care of any transparency issues you may encounter. Also, if your using spots color you may want to change them to process. I've had odd issues with spots and transparencies.

[PrintDriver]

Talk to the printer.
Is this being done in Illustrator? Gaussian Blur effect is a raster effect and if they aren't handling transparency correctly you will get the results you show. Proof proof proof.

[panzer]

yes we cant say this enough ALWAYS talk to the printer

its horrible when we get files and we actuallly dont get a copy proof with it

it can make life very hard and you wont do yourself any favours ,the less messing about that you create for the printer, the more he will respect you and then your work will be that much quicker

[PrintDriver]

^Oh yeah, send hard copy.
I can't tell you how often we get an emailed pdf 'hardcopy' from designers where the transparency effects are screwed up and we have to make the call to find out what they intended. I'm all for sending a real paper hardcopy.

I was actually talking about getting a print proof back from the printer. I won't do a $5000 banner without a proof, why should you get 1000 of something printed without one?

[Ned]

You should replace the gaussian blur on the cheeks with a circular color blend, from your brown color to your skin tone color. This will give the printer a nice vector blend to print, rather than a raster effect. Never use effects when you can do it with illustration.

If you have too much trouble matching your color blend, then just use an opacity mask.

[PrintDriver]

An opacity mask is a transparency effect.