I recently received a 100 MB raster image file from a client, and needed to use it as a background image in a bathymetric map of a reservoir. The image was a very high resolution TIFF file, depicting the bottom of the reservoir in great detail, which the client needed to see in his maps. It looked great in model space, on the layout tab, and even showed up in a plot preview, but when I tried to plot it to a PDF, the image was absent from the final plot.
Obviously, when plotting a lot of software and hardware variables come into play. I found a couple of solutions that helped in my situations; perhaps they will help you in similar situations.
For the complete tutorial, (and many others) follow this link...
Plotting Large Image Files
