gradient with pantone

Hi everybody,
I ve a little issue and I m not so sure how managing it.
I designed in illustrator a business card; the front side has just one spot color background- a pantone coated.

Later, I designed like clouds on this background: I drew them in photoshop, using watercolor brushes. I saved them in a transparent tiff file and imported in illustrator.
so, now i have two levels in illustrator: in the first the pantone background, in the second the clouds.
the clouds are just white, i didnt use other colors. They work like gradient.

but now I m not so sure is the best way to do it, and I m afraid could be printed with unexpected results.
what is the best way to do it? Better doing everything in Photoshop? Different layers could represent a problem for the printer?
I asked the print shop but they didnt seem so sure about it.

thank you so much!

mau

I would use layers here it's just the way I do things but it doesn't really matter. With any transparencies in Illy before you export your file to PDF or save it is better to flatten the area. That means turn your trans into a bitmap. You do this through your windows upper menu, go down to Flattener preview. With that palette opened you will see the effected area. Go to the Object top menu and go down to "Flatten Transparency", a window will open up showing resolution Presets I just use the "medium Res." one, click on preview and that will a look at what your finished biz card will look like. Now that is the standard way to deal with transparent areas on a drawing and any print shop can deal that and print. I always try to deal with transparent objects that I want in Illustrator the whole way and not bring objects in from other sources as I found in a few I got strange artifacts being introduced. Please note you can't use your PS brushes in AI. Sorry I forgot to say when there is text in your drawing unless it is part of the trans. keep the text at the top of your layer stacking as it prints better that way.

Here is a decent PDF which you can look at to get a better understanding on how to deal with transparencies for print: http://www.ghpmedia.com/wp-content/u...esignGuide.pdf

Do you want the Pantone to remain a spot color? Or are you having it printed as a process (4 color) job?

Hi!
Albacore, thank you so much for your answer, tomorrow I m checking the tips and the pdf. If I have some doubt, I will write you again. in any case, really thank you :)

Mwenz, well, frankly speaking i ve no idea what will decide my client. I think is better giving him a spot color. from a pantone is always possibile printing in CMYK. the opposite is more complicated...