I have had similar situations, but I must say that in that cases there proved to be some 'invisible' pixels left. A lot of times because of making a mask with something that was not 100% black, but 99% or 98%.

This example above is with Photoshop made brushed text with a mask, imported in Illustrator, printed to a pdf (to simulate printing) and the pdf openend in Photoshop. No problems found.

I think you should try to start with a transparent Photoshop file, doodle some lines, import in illustrator on a background and print. See if that replicates the situation. I do not think so, actually. But I can think of some factors.

Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign (my current choice of lay-out software) all use the same pdf standard to handle transparency and it works like a breeze. I use transparent photoshop files all the time. Without problems.

The problem could be your printer, that should be Postscript 3 compatible to handle the transparancy. (you could open your illustrator file in Photoshop and print that, to get what you make on paper)

One more thing I can think of: If your Photoshop file is RGB and the underground in Illustrator is CMYK and the file is printed, what actually happens is that the information gets interpreted and 'flattened', creating 'new' material that is divided in squares and consists of vector and pixel information that the printer can handle. The light square you see could be a wrong interpretation of the transparant part, because the color management settings are not correct.

Things like this can ruin the fun of creating. Sometimes you have to dive into the technique behind the pretty picture. And sometimes just work around the problem.

Message edited on: 12/02/2004 03:00