Images with transparency print showing bounding box (HP Latex 115 Printer)

[CopyCatPrinting]

For some reason, when we print files with PNGs that have transparency, the bounding box of the PNG is still visible in the print. 

This can be fixed if we print without colour correction, but that usually means we've wasted a bunch of media as the issue isn't noticed right away. 

We use Sai production manager, so not sure if it is an issue with the colour profiles loaded in it? If so, there are a lot of potential options to troubleshoot. 

Printer: HP Latex 115 Printer

photo of some test samples

[skuks]

In general - you're using the wrong image format for printing. PNG and its transparency are not intended for print-destined workflow... I guess your RGB image files with PNG transparency are in "transparency blend space" conflict with the colors used in the underlying content. Perhaps the transparent image areas are interacting with spot colors. The color modes of the document and all the vector objects in it are in play and likely mix-mismanaged. You might be able to save it by flattening transparency and/or processing to PDF before printing with Photoshop (or use similar program)... Color profiles just are doing color more/ less intense as it seems in your test prints... Just use flattened tiff, jpg, pdf with that transparency effect over background...

[CopyCatPrinting]

Hi Skuks, thanks for the feedback. 

To clarify, all of our files are PDFs, I just mean that the images used within those PDFs are printing with this issue. 

Unfortunately, we're a small print shop, and so get files from many different clients, so manually flattening each file isn't really viable (we have a team of 3 people). 

I'll have a look into automating flattening PDFs, though, as we have used that as a manual workaround in the past. Was just hoping it was something I could perhaps fix through the print software. 

[skuks]

Hi CopyCatPrinting,

you can't avoid editing image...or request one from client... if file isn't edited properly (in this specific case image isn't cropped and flattened properly, or crop effect (bound circle around that logo) is lost with PNG file inf), it's not separate layer you can avoid or spot color to replace... I think Sai has options and tools to edit images before printing, but since i'm not using this program for long time, can't tell how, just saw few youtube clips about that...