: Why is my Illustrator design exporting as an EPS and making white things transparent and transparent things with a white color block behind it? I have talked to several other designers and they

@Murray976

This may provide an answer although not specific to your file: Why do EPS (vector) file formats require a specified resolution?

Glows, blurs and the like must fade to something. Since an EPS is a flat file format, they fade to white unless there is a colored object behind them, then they fade to that colored object. When you save as EPS, a raster image gets created automatically and a clipping path added to indicate the area of the glow or blur.

In your image, that flare in the middle is converted to an embedded raster image with a clipping path when you save it as an eps.

The big question may be why are you using EPS at all? Unless you've specifically beed asked for an EPS file it is often better to simply use .ai or .pdf which will maintain the transparency without flattening. Of course, if you are a QuarkXpress user EPS may be a valid format for you (lord knows why they haven't sorted that though).

If you have been specifically asked for an EPS and the client is specifically requesting soft-edged objects like glows and blurs, it may benefit you to try and educate the client a bit about what is and is not well-supported in EPS formats, why EPS has become a less-common format and why PDF is customarily better. There are times when clients learn buzzwords and use them because they've become accustomed to them. "EPS" is one such buzzword - they know they want vector, and they know EPS often means vector, so they ask for an EPS. But they probably aren't aware of advances in file formats over the past several years.

Vote Up Vote Down