EPS opacity works on-screen but not print or PDF

[stevenrowat]

Hi,
I'm using EPS images in Nisus Pro and for me the opacity seems broken in printing. It reverts to 100% opacity; it prints and makes PDFs and print-Previews fully dark.

I tested a GIF in parallel with the EPS test and the GIFs print normally (with opacity gradations) in both cases (from .rtf and from PDF).

The puzzling thing is that the EPS shows opacity gradations on-screen; just not to print. So I'm guessing this is a bug. Can you confirm? Any way around this?

Steven Rowat

Mac OS 10.6
Nisus 2.01

[martin]

I'm no expert on EPS graphics, but it may be that transparency in PostScript (EPS) images is only partially supported. I tried creating some EPS graphics in Photoshop, but transparency was always lost on saving.

If you could send along your EPS graphic, I'd like to take a look and see what might be done. Thanks!

[martin]

In working with Steven privately, we've discovered that this is an issue with the shape fill opacity option when applied to EPS graphics. Transparency provided in the EPS graphic itself (eg: via a clipping mask) work properly, it's only the additional shape transparency option that fails to be drawn properly in PDFs. We're looking into ways we might solve this. As mentioned, other image formats are not affected.

Thanks for your help Steven!