I'm interested in saving a transparency in photoshop 7 (PC-based) to bring to quark for print but can't seem to pull it off.

In order to do this, you need to create a "clipping path."

I save the CMYK image on a transparent background and then goto help > export transparent image which brings up the Wizard.

For starters, it is impossible to preserve a transparent background in Quark. Can't do it--sorry.

Don't build the image on a transparent background. Instead, build it on an opaque background. Use the Pen tool to put a path around the part you wish to show. Save the path as a clipping path.

Transparency created this way is all-or-nothing; the clipping path creates a razor-sharp, hard'edged line. if you need translucency--if you need the image to blend in to the background--you do not do it in Quark. You blend the image with the background in Photoshop and bring it into Quark as one single merged image.

I save as a
Photoshop EPS using "None" for preview (also tried the TIFF 8-bit) and for encoding I use "ASCII" and have only the "include vector data" checked (leaving UNchecked halftone screen, include transfer function, include PostScript Color Management, image interpolation.

For starters, this creates a clipping path based on the image transparency. The path created this way is sloppy and imprecise, unsuitable for professional printing. It looks like garbage.

Also, if your computer is not an 8086 or an 80286--in orhter words, if you have a 386, 486, Pentium, or newer--do not save as ASCII. The reason that you would save an EPS in ASCII format is that you are printing from an 8086 or 80286 computer with an old-fashioned (on-ECP/EPP) parallel port to a parallel prot printer.

If you save as binary and not ASCII, the image will be much smaller and will print much faster, but you can't print it from an 8086 or 80286 computer. I'm going to assume you aren't using an antique computer, so that won't matter to you.

Results in Quark look very odd onscreen (no surprise)like there is actual text located inside the image and it prints very poorly as well.

Correct. It will print like garbage, too. You need to create a clipping path by hand. It would also look a lot better if you set your text in Quark, not Photoshop.

Hope that helps...

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Tag: prepress

Transparency for Prepress - Photoshop to Quark.