Flattening Issue

Applied glow effect to graphics that had transparent backgrounds; after exporting to PDF, I flattened the file and converted all text to outlines. Got a very light hairline to the right and below the image that the glow effect was added to..
Went back and re-exported but did NOT flatten the file and it was OK.
Thanks.

You could get the same display problem in any application if the zoom level drops below the monitor resolution—you can't rely on a low view percentage
In Photoshop if you have an object on a layer cut out of the layer below and view at 50% you are not seeing the actual pixels so here I'm seeing a white line that doesn't exist in the image. I have to magnify to at least 100% to see the actual pixels and know the white line isn't part of the image. In Acrobat or ID it would have to be higher because 100% isn't necessarily a 1:1 monitor to image pixel ratio, so look at the page at 400%+ in Acrobat.
200%

Similar Messages

Transparency flattening issue (I think)

Hi all,
I'd appreciate your help with this. I've tried researching this through the forum yet still find myself confused. I think it's a transparency flattening issue, but I'm unsure of how to fix it, and even at what point to fix it.
I designed this for a magazine ad in InDesign CS2 and exported to PDF. The polaroids have drop shadows, which look fine on screen:
But when I print I get these ugly "borders" where the transparencies are:
Can't get rid of them, except by printing the PDF as an image.
My questions are:
1) Assuming this is a transparency issue, how do I fix this? I've read about transparency presets on the forum, but (please forgive my lameness) I'm not sure how to actually apply them.
2) At what point do I fix this? I mean, as a best practice, is this something that's addressed inside InDesign, or during the export from InDesign, or when printing the PDF? It looked fine in the magazine so obviously they were able to fix it, but I'd still like to know what I'm doing wrong to save them extra work in the future.
I have Adobe CS2 and Acrobat 7 Pro on a Windows XP Pro.
Many thanks for your help,
Ed

That's quite a color shift, too, on the background which seems like more than you'd see from a poor image capture of the printed piece.
I bet you are using a spot color. Unless you are actually paying to have that spot color printed in the magazine (if they even would), you shouldn't be using it. Make sure you go into the ink manager and convert all spots to process, or replace any spot colors with process colors. You should be the one handling the color conversion, and using process color will simplify the flattening, I think.
Peter

Acrobat 9 flattening issues

After generating a "smallest file size" or "PDF/X-1a:2001" PDF in InDesign CS4 (and fonts are embedded), I add a watermark and everything in the file is fine. After flattening the PDF, there are sporadic areas where type crashes together. Or in another instance, ligature characters disappear, leaving a small gap.
I'm assuming both problems may depend on the font that is being used, since this does not appear to happen in every file.
Has anyone else come across this issue? If so, is there a known fix? ... like perhaps an extra step to apply in order to avoid these problems?

I think it's about the same problem I have published last week. I didn't get feedback.
"PDF changes alignment when optimizing it
Since I upgraded to CS4 strange things happen.
When I optimize a PDF in Acrobat Pro 9.1.0 (to get a PDF that can be mailed) the text that used to be aligned full is now aligned to the left."

Save as PDF with [PDF/X-1a:2001] preset not flattening issue

Hi all,
I have a document with some transparency so I want to flatten it while saving to a PDF. In the UI, if I save it using [PDF/X-1a:2001] preset, it's perfeclty flattened.
But if I order the same operation through scripting, it doesn't. What am I doing wrong, it makes me crazy !
var doc=app.activeDocument;
var pdfSaveOptions = new PDFSaveOptions();
pdfSaveOptions.pDFPreset="[PDF/X-1a:2001]";
var pdfFile = new File(Folder.desktop + "/testIllu4.pdf");
doc.saveAs(pdfFile, pdfSaveOptions);
TIA.
Loic

Hi Larry,
Just tried your function and indeed if I have a specific preset, it works. I hoped I could just set the PDF options without calling a preset.
I just looked and it seems like impossible to add a preset into Illustrator
That's really tough.
Thanks a lot anyway for helping.
Loic
Edit : FINALLY, I could get it. I suspected something when I saw into Acrobat that the file didn't contain transparency but was indeed transparent into Illustrator. I forgot to deactivate the editability. And that was all !
var doc=app.activeDocument;
var pdfSaveOptions = new PDFSaveOptions();
pdfSaveOptions.pDFXStandard=PDFXStandard.PDFX1A2001;
pdfSaveOptions.compatibility = PDFCompatibility.ACROBAT4;
pdfSaveOptions.preserveEditability = false;
var pdfFile = new File(Folder.desktop + "/test.pdf");
doc.saveAs(pdfFile, pdfSaveOptions);
Loic
Message was edited by: Loic_aigon

Multicam flattening issue

Hi !
I'm experiencing a weird bug/behavior while flattening my multicam sequence.
Here is my "workflow" :
- I create a multicam sequence by selecting the angles and the audio in the project panel. At this step, the cameras are in the wrong order.
- Instead of moving the tracks in the multicam sequence, i open it in the source view, and choose "change cameras" (I'm french, i don't konw the exact translation for this function)
- I edit my sequence.
When i try to flatten it, the order of the cameras set previously in the source view is skipped, and the "flatten function" uses the track number of the sequence to replace the edit.
Before submitting a bug report, i want to know if somebody has experienced this problem yet. Is it a normal behavior ? (In my opinion, it shouldn't be) Is there a workaround ?
Thanks.
(I'm on the latest version of Premiere Pro CC (7.2.1), Mac os x 10.9.2)

- Instead of moving the tracks in the multicam sequence, i open it in the source view, and choose "change cameras"
Huh?

Tebuchet screen rendering issues in Acrobat

I have created an information sheet using MS Trebuchet on the Mac in InDesign and exported to PDF. When viewing the PDF the font does not display correctly, some area looks bold. If you change the percentage zoom page size the font changes. It look fine at 130% but at 134% some of the sentences in paragraphs look bold?

I have been in discussion with a typographic designer who suggests it may be a combination of Trebuchet not being a ClearType font and therefore old technology and the text styling not being clean when the text is copied from Word into InDesign
Urm, both of those suggestions are gibberish absurdities.
First, whether a font is "a ClearType font" is just a question of whether the font's hinting is specifically optimized for ClearType. Non-ClearType fonts work fine under ClearType as well, and in any case Acrobat doesn't use ClearType at all—it uses Adobe's own font rendering technology.
Text styling is only an issue when the text is styled to a non-existent font. For example, you style some text bold, and there is no available bold font. This is only a problem in applications that allow such "faux" styles and try to "simulate" the bold or italic effect. But InDesign doesn't allow faux styles, hence there is no way that there could be a faux styling issue in a PDF made from InDesign. (I imagine there are ways to get faux styles into Acrobat, especially if the fonts aren't embedded, but I'm not sure I've seen it, aside from Acrobat's own substitution fonts. But none of that is relevant here.)
So I don't know what the problem IS, but I can tell you with some certainty that those are two things it IS NOT.
My first thought, like Dov's, was that it was some sort of transparency and flattening issue. But the details of where the text is and which text is affected make that seem less obviously plausible. Still, you might try as an experiment deleting the object(s) with the drop shadow on that page and seeing what happens. Or even copying that text box to an empty page.
Regards,
T

Mac OSX 10.5: "Let InDesign Determine Colors" is my only option.

ID 6.0.3
Trying to print to my Epson R2400 inkjet: I'm getting lousy colors and wasting an immense amount of ink toggling all the various options in trying to get a decent print.
"Color Management" has a "Color Handling" dropdown-control but it's stuck on "Let InDesign Determine Colors". I'm sure I'd get better colors with this printer if IT could manage them. How can I fix this?

(A) InDesign's print dialog is where one
is supposed to be able to print from. Saving to another app and
printing from there is counterintuitive and a total waste of time.
(B)
Yet another layer of options and settings to wade through. And print
settings in Acrobat are not, to the best of my knowledge, saved with
the doc.
(C) Yet another file to
store, make room for and keep track of. Not surprisingly, the
print-quality pdf I just created is substantially larger than the .indd
file it originated from.
Im not looking to argue the issue, but instead to maybe shine a different light on this...
(A) Agreed, you should be able to print straight from ID, but its not a waste of time. Quite the opposite. Exporting to PDF lets you FAR more accurately preflight your documents before print as well as (assuming you export using X1a compliance) flatten them properly. MANY times you will have font issues at print, printing from Indesign will leave you blind to these, as well as flattening issues AND spot color issues resulting from converting them outside of the native applications they were created in.
(B) Again, that is one way to look at it. I however see it as the Only print dialogue i ever deal with. I export everything to PDF, (AI, Quark, Indesign, photoshop everything) then print. I only need to know that one dialogue. As for print options, i just save them for different types of printing, jsut a few saved profiles will cover most prints.
(C) Cant argue here. The ID file doesnt inclued all the links so it is MUCH smaller... but also much less portable, compatable etc.
I dont use PDFs to print because i have to, i do it because in my humble opinion, the benefits are just too many to pass up.

Exporting PDF format for web viewing, fonts look bad

Hey everybody I'm relatively new to indesign so sorry if this is a simple one. I'm doing a newsletter in indesign, which will be used stricktly for web viewing. Whenever I export the file as a pdf the body text fonts look a bit off, as though they are slightly pixelated around the edges. This is not as noticable in the artcile titles with larger font, but any smaller font (i'm using size 14, and futura book) and it gets this pixelation, it is even more noticeable in the thinner type sets of the font. Another odd thing is the first page of the newsletter the fonts are more messed up looking than the following pages where the same font types and sizes are used, the only major difference is the first page has a photo on it, but the fonts that look weird are below the photo not overlaying it or anything like that. I turned off all the compression on the pdf export, also tried it will varying amounts of compression but still have the same issue. And I am viewing this in Mac's Preview program, not acrobat.

Ok, just checked through all the flattening preview highlights and everything looked fine in that. Since my exported document looked perfectly fine in acrobat, but sort of pixelated in mac's preview, is there any way around that?
If you are serving the PDF via a web address it will very likely be viewed in a browser (not downloaded and opened in an app like Preview or Reader). All of the browser displays have slightly different anti-aliasing, which you can see if you zoom in on a screen capture of the text. Here's a line of text from your PDF at 100%, magnified to 400% in Photoshop. From top to bottom Safari, Chrome, Firefox:
There's nothing you can do about the anti-aliasing quality of the different browsers and apps. The PDF you posted has live transparency, so it isn't a flattening issue.

White lines around type in illustrator artwork

I keep getting a white outlined box around type in my Illustrator artwork. I’ve run into this before (going back to CS6) and haven’t been able to solve this problem. It’s a simple logo design with a gradient circle with an S on top. Here are the specs to avoid the most obvious questions.
Text is converted to curves.
Text and circle gradient are on different layers.
Colors are CMYK. Not spot.
Looks fine in Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign but shows up when exported or printed to Acrobat.
Also shows up in MSWord 2010 and 2013.
Exporting artwork to EPS, BMP, EMF, TIF, JPG, all produce the same result.
Flattening the artwork doesn’t fix the issue.
Having this issue with both Illustrator CS6 and CC.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

As soon as you flatten do you see the problem in Illustrator, or after you make a .pdf?
Is that a soft drop shadow on the S, what happens if you temporarily remove the shadow?
What setting do you have for document setup >> transparency? Do you have any blending modes assigned?
So you have both CS6 & CC, did this happen before the cash cow was installed? I would say so turn off smoothing in Acrobat as in my initial screenshot, but you say that this happens even in other non pdf formats. Try resetting your preferences, this looks like a tranparency flattening issue.

What is causing white lines around photos in Muse?

Some of my photos are showing up on the preview with thin white lines at the bottom or side. Lines don't show up in the originals in design. Also checked box for no stroke around photo? Any ideas how to remove it?

As soon as you flatten do you see the problem in Illustrator, or after you make a .pdf?
Is that a soft drop shadow on the S, what happens if you temporarily remove the shadow?
What setting do you have for document setup >> transparency? Do you have any blending modes assigned?
So you have both CS6 & CC, did this happen before the cash cow was installed? I would say so turn off smoothing in Acrobat as in my initial screenshot, but you say that this happens even in other non pdf formats. Try resetting your preferences, this looks like a tranparency flattening issue.

"Open in external editor" difference in 1.5?

In 1.1.2 I used to open a file in PS2, make adjustments, add layers, etc. and save back to Aperture. Occasionally, I would then straighten or crop in Aperture, and then re-open in PS2 for further edits at a later time. If I remember correctly, when I did this layers would still be preserved when I opened the file in PS2.
However, when I go through the same steps in 1.5, the file is flattened when it is opened in PS2 that second time (after straightening or croppping or whatever in Aperture). Could someone check this on their system and let me know if they see the same behavior (I've been having strange issues with 1.5 that others don't seem to have, so I want to be sure it's not my computer).
Also, is anyone out there still running 1.1.2 that could check the same thing? I may be losing my mind, but I'm almost certain that layers were preserved all the way through.
Thanks,
Chris

Incorrect. They shouldn't flatten PSD files -- in fact with "open in external editor" they never have -- not even in the 1.0 release.
The "flatten" issue was with 1.0 when you imported PSD files into Aperture... and this was because of Aperture's stated goal of "never touching a master file." This (somewhat annoying) behavior was changed in 1.1. But no version, to my knowledge, flattens PSDs that have been created in Photoshop with "open in external editor."
I just tried this with 1.5, and I am able to see and edit the layers I created on a PSD file that I previously created via "edit in external editor" which was Photoshop. So that works fine in 1.5, as it did in 1.1.2 and previous version.
However, I have noticed a couple weird things:
1) It's creating a third version when I do this, from the original master
2) Deleting any version created via this manner pops up a dialog "do you want to delete this master and all versions?" which is disconcerting as I just want to delete the extra version, not any versions. It works as expected, but the dialog could use some work I think.

Silhouette feature question

have an image of a pair of boots... cut out in photoshop on transparent background. inserted into Illustrator and has a small white line around the image... like it is an uneven cut. (magic wand in photoshop...tried to short cut)
so made a silhouette copy of the image... but it is black. need it white. is there any way to change the silhouette to white vs black?
appreciate the help

You can colorize pixel images in a limited fashion using the relevant filters or by applying tints. Regarding the white line issue, you may want to search for discussions on how to deal with these trapping/ overprint/ transparency flattening issues across programs.
Mylenium

Unwanted lightening effect around placed graphic

I originally posted this in the InDesign forum but that may have been the wrong way to approach it.
I have an Illustrator vector graphic placed in InDesign, it's over a dark background.
Placed by itself the graphic looks fine, exports to PDF fine and prints fine.
However, there is a drop shadow effect added to the frame in InDesign (using the regular select tool), after which the placed graphic still looks fine.
There is, unfortunately, an invisible lightening effect added to the graphic which only manifests in the printed PDF.
This lightening effect is not visible in the InDesign file and is not visible in the PDF on screen (even when I check the separations), it is only visible on the printout of the PDF.
Since it is not visible in the PDF, here is a simulation of the lightening effect:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/8025/windoweffect.jpg
Anyone experienced anything like this?

It could be anything, but probably due to flattening issues on PDF export.
This is your screen shot, background removed, the two colored rectangles added in ID, added text for "The Gathering," the PS file added and the drop shadow effect applied to the PSD file from within ID. Screen shot is from the PDF.
Take care, Mike

Export indesign document to pdf white strokes around text

Hello there, I have this problem, I am exporting an indesign document to interactive pdf, and the problem seams to appear, when I open the created pdf in adobe reader x, it shows some of the text with white outlines, and the text looks very thick. When previewed in indesign, it looks perfect, text looks crisp. I also opened the pdf document with apples preview, and in preview it looks fine! But in adobe reader it looks horible, I tried adobe readers on other computers, and they all show up with the outline. What causes this anoying issue? plase help, thanks

We'd have to see the file to know for sure, but this sounds like a transparency flattening issue. Thickened text is indicative of it being converted to outlines, whcih can happen when it interacts with transparency. It's not clear if your white lines are around theindividual glyphs, or around the entire areas. The latter is also a common flattenign artifact called "stitching" that shows up on screen and in low resoution printing.
The first bit of advice is to keep your text at the top of the stacking order, above transparency, shadows, and other effects. It sometimes helps to have a top layer just for text. The way to eliminate these artifacts 100% of the time is to not flatten transparency at all, which is possible in Print PDFs, but alas, not in Interactive.

Opacity mask shape shows in EPS file

Hi guys, this might be a stupid question but for example: say I have text in illustrator and I put a white elipse over the text and then put an opacity mask on the elipse and paste the text onto the opacity mask so that the white elipse only shows up on the text, I then take the opacity down to create a glass effect so to speak. Well, when I save this as a PNG, it is all ok as all you can is the text with the glass effect, however, when I save it as a EPS file (which I need) it shows the WHOLE elipse in the background, as well as the text, how do I delete this white background that shows the elipse when saving as an EPS.
Thanks

There's a few ways you can do what you are doing. You have not mentioned what color the text is. But, yes you can do it by clipping. Here's what I would do ( to bypass the Flattening issues ). Copy the text and move it off the artboard. Convert the copied text to outlines. Position the ellipse over the text where you want it. Select both the outlined text and the ellipse. Go to the Pathfinder menu and select "Divide". Now, select the elements inside the ellipse you want to appear transparent. Set the new color in the Color menu. I'm thinking the text is 100% K ( Black ), where the ellipse appears inside the text, set the color to whatever transparency percentage you had used in the previous file ( er, let's say 40% K ). As an option, you can delete any unwanted ellipse segments left behind.

Flattening Issue

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