Why is my Illustrator design exporting as an EPS and making white things transparent and transparent things with a white color block behind it?

Question

I have talked to several other designers and they can't figure it out. I've read multiple forums and have tried everything they recommend to no avail. My client wants the center glow effect as seen. I've taken it apart piece by piece and narrowed it down to confirm it's the glow causing the problem. I've tried creating the glow, I've tried purchasing a vector glow and inserting it - all have the same result.

In Illustrator, it looks perfect. If I export as a PNG, it looks perfect. If I export as an EPS, the white points of the compass become transparent (they should be white) and the center glow has a white color block behind it (it should be have a gradient transparency). I am at a complete loss on what to do. Is it not possible to have a vector image with a glow?

This is what it should look like when on a colored background.

This is what the EPS looks like when on a colored background. (NOTICE the white section of the compass points are now transparent and the white glow has the color block.)

Answer 1

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.