Flat PSD to AI: a sign-off plate for legal and clients, not a promise of layered engineering
`flatten-psd-ai-file` targets approvals: one Illustrator-open page that legal can stamp while designers keep the PSD authoritative. Gradients, meshes, and heavy effects rasterize into the plate—seeing image tiles in AI is normal. If sales promised “fully editable AI,” fix the contract or attach PSD before you upload.
Como usar
- Merge-visible preview in Photoshop to ensure no stray watermark layers, and add real canvas bleed if the vendor will draw marks—do not expect AI to invent print marks.
- Open in Illustrator outline/preview modes to confirm the plate is mostly embedded rectangles; plan vector redraws on new layers instead of “exploding” nonexistent paths.
- Email subject tags FLAT_HANDOFF and ship via managed links with expiry—mailbox limits will corrupt or block huge PDF-compatible files.
PSD to AI (flatten) FAQ
Business teams equate “flat AI” with normal brand toolkit editability—what single contract sentence separates it from engineering AI?
Write that the deliverable is a PDF-compatible flat plate for annotation and vector overlays atop a raster base, with PSD as the reversible master—without that line, procurement will audit you like a layered construction file and reject the job.
Photoshop gradients and meshes show as one raster block in Illustrator—failure or expected flattening?
Expected: those effects are not trivially portable as vectors. Rebuild gradients/meshes in Illustrator or start from vector sources; online PSD→AI is not an auto-vectorizer.
Transparent regions look gray or split in AI/Acrobat compared to Photoshop—what should we flatten first?
Composite exotic blends to the printer’s agreed matte on desktop before handoff; RIPs and PDF viewers interpret live transparency differently than the PS canvas, so high-value jobs need a desktop flatten proof, not repeated online retries.
Embedded hero art makes the .ai enormous and corporate mail gateways reject it—how do we distribute without corruption?
Use audited object storage links with hashes and expirations; email only the link and version notes—forcing attachments through filters often yields truncated files that look like “bad conversion.”
Copy changes after sign-off—fastest low-debt path?
Return to PSD for authoritative text and re-export a new versioned .ai; AI-only type overlays are fine for quick markups if the ticket records them as non-final print layers to avoid dual sources of truth.