Sure, Illustrator is designed to support the workflow, to an extent. I wouldn’t dispute that.
Well, there’s never an issue — until there’s an issue, and I know you know Adobe’s Illustrator forum is chock full of posts about issues with raster images into and out of Illustrator. There are pitfalls and misconceptions and workarounds, all avoidable just by dividing up one’s workflow in a way that avoids the weaknesses and leverages the strengths in the Adobe offering.
It can be put down to personal preference, of course, and I’m sure there are millions of historical cases of trouble-free page layout in Illustrator. I never assert that those folks, or the ones who encounter issues, are doing something wrong; only that the issues the encounter, when they do, could be avoided.
PNG is an RGB format. Print work is CMYK, but you already knew that.
If someone wants to depend on an output RIP to do the conversion from RGB to CMYK, it’ll work. And for six-color digital printing, the larger gamut will better facilitate the larger gamut of that process, but saying it situational works is a far cry from saying there’s nothing wrong with it.
Personally, I regard using PNG for print as a sloppy work procedure that sets the stage for possible output problems that could easily be avoided by converting to CMYK. I like to see the results of the RGB conversion before I send things off to have them printed. Then again, I don’t do much work intended for digital printing.
Because .pngs can include transparency, which causes spot color issues in digital, I hate using them for print. As said, a lot of times it doesn’t matter. Until it does.
And not being able to turn off auto-reading of clipping paths in Illustrator is just dumb, and has been a bug for nearly a decade now, if not more
I tend to agree for many of the same sorts of reasons that I convert images to CMYK or wear a bicycle helmet or use seat belts. It has to do with adding a level of safety that comes with no particular downside.
Personally, I prefer using Illustrator for small layout jobs, like brochures. But from several less-than-satisfactory outcomes over the years that stemmed from placing photos into Illustrator, I’ve learned to avoid the issue by using InDesign — even when it involves doing the bulk of the layout in Illustrator, then placing that file into InDesign where I add the photos.
As I said the PNG can have an icc profile.
Rips often do a better conversion to cmyk. If you are making the RGB to CMYK then what colour profile? What CMYK?
Thats why its best to leave it in the format you received it. Besides the PDF conversion CAN convert all to CMYK at a particular output destination.
But typically a lot of places have switched to PDF X4 which does no colour conversion and the colour conversion is handled by RIP at output destination.
Just because PNG is RGB isnt a big deal. Convert to CMyK? No need. No advantage.
You have your way of working, and if it suits you with no problems, fine. Some of the commercial printers I work with would send the job back if I did it that way — or at least mention it to me.
Even if that weren’t the case, I’d still rather do the CMYK conversion myself so I can see the results and make needed adjustments. And even in those instances where I know a digital printer prefers an RGB file for their larger-gamut printing process, I’d still convert any PNG I might have been given to an RGB .psd.
Been having these conversations for the last twenty years. Dov Isaacs the principle scientist with Adobe would severely disagree with you.
I know printers who reject jobs for stupid reasons. And if a printer rejected my job for a rgb png file I would take the job off them and go somewhere else.
Clearly have not got the knowledge or skills to do the work.
That is fair enough and I would expect someone in a colour critical role to know their colour stuff and be able to do the job. No issue at all with that.
Well I know what I am talking about and so do you. And its great we have different workflows that yield same results. It is what makes a forun worthwhile, having people with different experiences and different knowledge to draw from. The OP can take that, see what works for them and solve their problem.
In the OP’s case, I’m guessing the print job is a low-quantity, digitally printed mailer. In all probability, what we’ve been talking about regarding where the color conversion takes place (local computer or output RIP) isn’t especially important as long as something reasonable emerges.
However, as Steve pointed out, the issue the OP was having just might have been caused by the PNG. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me and was one of my guesses too — either that or a masking glitch.
In this case, my initial advice didn’t go into all the details about possible PNG transparencies, color gamuts, CMYK+ digital as opposed to offset, masking issues and that sort of thing. Instead, it was more of a suggestion that sticking to well-established technical and production standards can help avoid unanticipated problems.
Having some sort of weird knockout issue showing up in the PDF might just as easily have not shown up in the PDF and shown up instead during RIP output, where it would add both time and some expense to fix it.
Like I said, I don’t know if it was the PNG or some other issue. But there are ways to be safe and ways to be even safer, and unless the rewards outweigh the risks and one knows what one is doing, it’s typically better to play it safe.
Just gonna toss out there that PDF X4 doesn’t always clear up a transparency+spot dropout.
I’m just hoping this isn’t going to a place that accepts jpg files to print and that that isn’t the solution selected. Maybe the OP will have a chance to come back and let us know what the issue was.
To everyone who has replied … I really appreciate all the input …
Steve_O you are partially correct in that the problem is originating with what the photographer is doing to these photos. However, when I went to save as a PSD and then a PDF the same problem arises. They sent another photo over from the same photographer and the exact same thing is happening … see attached.
Smurf2 I’m not that familiar with transparencies - everything I’ve tried here has not worked. I need to put a stop to this as this company uses this photographer for all their video / everything and I don’t want to be up against this every time something comes from him. This has been a complete time suck…
Is there any way you could zip up the files and post it for download somewhere. This problem could be the result of a dozen different things, so it’s difficult to say without examining them.
