I'm sorry but am a newbie to this lark (< 6 months) and am sorry but don't understand what you've said.

Can you tell me in laymans terms?

Many Thanks

The transparency is set to normal if that's what you mean. Wierd thing is that the print quality pdf looks fine on the screen but prints badly; is the printer the problem – I use the RIP in the printer.

???

Don't have Acrobat at all – have just been using Preview. Probably wrongly.

Am downloading Acrobat Reader as it's free to try that.

But am wondering whether it's the press that's causing the dark to light scenario?

Cheers

Philip

Indeed it did thank you.

Never spotted the overprint option, whatever that means!!

Thanks again Philip :)

I should mention that it prints fine when the drop shadows are switched off.

Before I go to all that aggro I'll try and explain better.

I am printing to a Digital press (OKI C9800) directly from my Mac.  The problem I am getting is that the pictures are in frames at various angles.  Once the drop shadows are added the pictures underneath generally show a light rectangle behind the uppermost image, effectively making the pictures at the bottom having light patches on them.  The option flattener preview/highlight transparent objects shows me exactly what it is doing.

But I can't fix it !!!

Cheers