Resolving a problem when printing image masks on some PostScript printers.

Q:

I have been noticing that PDF's with masked images, (chromakey or
Image), have a difficult time printing on PostScript printers. It
seems that on Level 2 printers, Acrobat prints them as solid. On
Level 3 printers they either partially print, or fail with an error.
I am seeing this with images that are not particularly large, maybe
600x800.

I have had a little better luck with Image masks, but not much. I was
wondering if you had any insight on why this happens, or
recommendations on how to make a PDF with masked images more
successful on PS printers.
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A:

The problem is most likely that these PostScript rasterizers are buggy
or use certain emulation tricks to simulate masks (which don't produce
the best results). As an alternative, you could use PDFNet to
rasterize a PDF page and then send the resulting image to the printer
(you can also use PDFNet to detect whether the document contains any
image masks).