Th drop shadow you have on the yellow burst, is considered a transparency effect and causing this. So it is creating a bitmap and the colpr management is what is making this look off. If you were though to copy and paste this into photoshop, then you should find your result looks normal (see my screenshot). So depending on what and how you are doing with this .eps you may either be good or have a problem. Printing seperations should be good, bit making a screenshot would look bad.

Lef is illustrator after flatten trans(the pink is actually 2 rectangles so I could demonstrate what is happening), and the color looks bad. Right is copying this bad result into Photoshop and looks good again.

This is not an 'always' sort of thing, but most often when I see this is when a drop shadow (or other raster efect) has been created in a CMYK document, over an imbedded RGB element (or vice versa), or some other sort of profile mismatch between document color space and imbedded images or graphics.

Though it sounds like you've been doing this a long time, and the problem just cropped up recently, so I don't know why that would be.

These articles are about older versions (and one is about InDesign), but they address the same, or similar, problem and may provide some ideas:

http://indesignsecrets.com/eliminating-ydb-yucky-discolored-box-syndro me.php

http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/2006/08/spot-colors-transparency-and .html

Just my 2 cents.

OB

Some thiogs to consider.

Is the original Image CMYK because if it is rgb and you have a cmyk document it will be converted to cmyk with Illustrators color management rules applied.

then you should look at those color management rules Edit>Color Settings and make cetain thay are the same as Photoshop if that is your image edting app.

then you should consider turning on overprint preview to see an accurate representtation even if there is no overprint.You can also proof your colors. View>Proof Colors.

Make certain the bvlack for the shadow is a cmyk black.

@ emil emil,

I've never been able to make it happen myself, either. These are files sent from customers where, who knows what they did. In the worst cases (for production) the efect does not appear when viewed on the screen in Illustrator, but is very apparent in the rip or when printed. And, yes, we've gone through many, many tests with different profiles, different rips, etc., etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's worse.

With a doubtful file (a combination of what's in the file, and the track record of files from the specific customer) we will often "pre-rip" the file by taking it into PhotoShop, which usually will show the problem if it is going to occur, then we supply the print department with a tif.

Clunky, I know, but it usually works.

Next time I come across one of these where confidentiality isn't an issue, I will keep you in mind and upload it somewhere you can get it to look at. I am always interested in new ideas and solutions.

OB

Look at my example above, and try this:

1. Draw 2 vertical magenta rectangles
2. Draw a reflex blue circle on top, and add a drop shadow
3. Select one rectangle, and the reflex blue circle,
4. Object >> flatten transparency >> preserve transparency(CHECKED)

Then copy and paste this into Photoshop, and it fixes the problem. Not sure exactly why as I did not see anything with view >>  overprint preview on\, or view >> proof colors.

I used Mac AICS5.1.

OK, I got it. But this is because the drop shadow got cut in half and one of the halves remaining over the vector lost its Multiply blending mode. If before flattening in the Drop Shadow effect the blending mode is Normal there will be no change after flattening. And after flattening transparency with the drop shadow in Multiply blending mode you can make them the same again if you select the drop shadow that remains over the vector rectangle with the direct selection tool and change its blending mode to Multiply again.

This doesn't seem to be the op's problem though. In the op's image the entire raster image patch after fattening got darker, it is not just changed appearance of the drop shadow due to change of the blending mode.

I guess you are pasting in a RGB document which is similar if you paste in a RGB Illustrator file from a CMYK Illustrator file. If I paste to a CMYK file with the same color space the result is the same as in Illustrator. In RGB the blending mode remains Normal but the shadow is also transparent and the transparency is handled better in RGB and even slightly better when displaying it in Photoshop than Illustrator. If you export the Illustrator file to a Photoshop document preserving layers you will see that the shadow remains in Normal blending mode and if you then convert the to RGB mode with layers preserved you get the same appearance as if when pasted.