.ai file to indesign white background woes.

Question

First off the specs: Mac OS 10.6.3 running CS4 all updates.
I have a picture, placed in Illustrator, gave it that reflect look. I now want to put it in indesign. I get the white background. It works fine if I dont do any effects, but thats pretty much useless. This is what I have done in pictures:
[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j164/wonderings/Screenshot2010-04-12at21929PM.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j164/wonderings/Screenshot2010-04-12at21944PM.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j164/wonderings/Screenshot2010-04-12at21953PM.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j164/wonderings/Screenshot2010-04-12at22015PM.png[/IMG]
I am sure I am missing something small, but its driving me nuts.

Answer 1

if this needs to eventually go to print, i'm going to make you do it the smart way
go into illustrator
file, export
select .tif
and when the option comes up of screen medium or high, select high (300dpi)
in indesign
make a box
or whatever you want to place it in
have the box selected
and hit ctrl d
or file: place
select the file you just exported
and if it is see through... the box... then make the fill color white
and you can play around with it all you like like a normal photo
make the fill color white: select the box that you place the picture in
and on the left there are two boxes under all the tools... a regular box and an outlined box
click the regular one
and then on the right go to the swatch palette
and click white
and then, if it looks weird
you should keep the picture box selected, right click, and then something like view quality or something. select high
also, when you export the illustrator doc, when you selected high 300dpi... you should also make sure it's CMYK not RGB
if it is going to press, tifs are better
but if it's a jpeg
then you could have exported it at screen 72 dpi and it should be RGB