Transparency blend color space in Illustrator

In InDesign there is an option to specify the transarency blend color space. Is there something equivalent to this in Illustrator? If not, how does Illustrator set the colorspace (CMYK or RGB) for transparent elements? In printing we can get all kinds of problems with transparency problems such as boxes, if the transparency space differs from the image's working space. I want to find a way to sync this so the transparency blends all match the working space. Typically I work in CMYK. Thanks.

Ai offers you either RGB or CMYK; you decide which in the File > Document Color Mode ( circa v10 ). Transparency doesn't care which space you use in Ai. If you work in CMYK, then just make sure your swatches and images are CMYK. But, I think there are other reasons why you'd get boxes in transparent objects. Take a look at Flattening.

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Color Space Question For Printing

I have multiple newbie questions so please bear with me
Normally when working in photoshop, I tend to use the RGB color space as I need the use of filters and other effects not available in CMYK, Now when printing flyers E.g A4 Sized I tend to save the PSD in RGB (Without Flattening) and then importing it into a CMYK color space in illustrator and then exporting as a PDF, as illustrator gives me the option to create bleed as well as trim marks, I have never exported a PDF from photoshop as it always gives me the option of photoshop pdf which is kinda heavy.
My question is, is the process I use okay for printing? or do I first need to convert it into CMYK? or just export from photoshop itself? Also, the other reason I use illustrator is if i'm making a business card with two sides, since text is better exported from illustrator.
Could anyone tell me a simpler process for creating for digital print? Especially if I need to do some items in illustrator as well.

>> images are still a bit washed out with a warmish/ yellow cast to them, particularly, my black and white images
Here is a simple test to help evaluate if the monitor profile is reasonably good:
Open a RGB file in Photoshop (flatten if not already flattened).
Press M key> Drag a selection> Com+Shift+U (Desaturate).
Com+Z (to toggle back and forth).
If the unsaturated selection looks neutral you've got a reasonably fair monitor profile.
If selection has color casts (not neutral) -- you have a bad monitor profile
+++++
Here is a simple test to help evaluate if a bad monitor profile is whacking out your Photoshop color:
Monitors/Displays (control panel)> Color> highlight AppleRGB or sRGB (don't run Calibrate), quit and reboot.
If the Photoshop colors are back under control, then the problem was most surely a bad monitor profile go back into Monitors/Displays> Color and Calibrate a good profile highlight (load) sRGB, or preferably, the monitor's OEM profile as a starting point.
If you are using a puck, it is likely defective; or your monitor hardware is the culprit...search it on Google by model number

Document's transparency blend space? Destination color space?

I need some hand-holding please.
I just exported to pdf, and got this message, and would be happy to fix it if I had a clue what to do:
The document's transparency blend space doesn't match the destination color space specified in the Export Adobe PDF settings.
To avoid color appearance changes in the PDF, click cancel and change either the document's transparency blend space, or the destination color space.
Can you please translate that into English and tell me what to do?

OK, I've reproduced the problem, and here's what I'd do.
You've placed RGB images over CMYK vector paterns made in Illustrator, which in some ways makes things more complex than if the imges and backgrounds were all in a single color space, but it looks as if only the backgrounds are going to be affected by any flattening that will be taking place in the conversion, so if there is any color shifting due to the flattening and choice of space, and I don't see any, it will be isolated to the background texture and probably not noticeable.
Since you have two destinations, you need two differnt PDFs. The sample is very interesting, but I suspect the print run will be small -- limited to family members -- so the first thing to do is ask the printer what PDF export settings he wants you to use. If you're going to have this printed somewhere like Kinkos or Staples, they probably can't answer that question, and I'd stick with the High Quality Print preset, and be sure the compatibility is set to Acrobat 5 or higher so the transparency isn't flattened. Print one page as a sample before committing to the entire job to check the color (and don't expect miracles from the average copy shop running a color copier -- they usually just aren't set up to handle color management and matching).
For the screen version, set the blend space to RGB and choose the Smallest File Size preset. you shouldn't get the warning (but you could ignore it even if you did). If the file is still too big, set the compressin settings to downsample color and grayscale to 75 ppi and lineart to 600 and see if that helps before you try reducing the quality in the compression. The prints off a desktop printer won't be quite as good as they will be at 100ppi, but probably acceptable on most inexpensive paper stocks that peopl seem to use, and hopefully they are going to get the better printed version, anyway.
Peter

Transparency and color blend space: fail!

Hi there. I keep trying to export my pdf, to no avail.
I get an error that pops up that says there is an error with my transparency and color blend space.
HOWEVER, all my images are set to CMYK (it says so in the links panel) and my transparency blend space is also set to CMYK. I have no errors in my preflight panel. When I ignore the message and continue to export, the image looks completely different and not the way I want it to show up.
Please let me know how I can fix this error! Thanks so much!

Document CMYK is the assigned profile in Edit>Assign Profiles.... Working CMYK is Color Settings...>Working Spaces>CMYK. If there's no profile assigned, document and working are the same. So in this case Document CMYK is Coated FOGRA27 and Working CMYK is US Web Coated SWOP—the assigned FOGRA is color managing the document's native CMYK colors not the working US SWOP

Changing transparency blend space

I have a bunch of InDesign files that were created for print that I now need to save with RGB colors at the behest of my ePub developer. I have a simple script to change my pantone spot swatches to RGB, but I want to add a line to that to change the documents' transparency blend space to RGB. Right now they're all using a CMYK blend space. I'm a scripting novice, obviously. Does anyone have a relevant example or suggestion? Thanks in advance.

@mcanespy – it's a preference:
app.documents[0].transparencyPreferences.blendingSpace = BlendingSpace.RGB;
You can easily spot things like that at:
http://www.jongware.com/idjshelp.html
Download and search the chm files.
Uwe

Color space conversion due to transparency ...

Hi there!
Let's assume we have a document that contains two RGB images, one of them is set to 70 % transparency. When printing to PDF, the 70 % transparent RGB image is converted to CMYK, the other one retains its RGB color space ...
I seem to understand that this is due to the current transparency color space setting. I could change that to RGB.
But I wonder: Is there no way to keep the color space here, no matter if it is CMYK or RGB the images are coming with?
Thanks,
Klaus

Klaus,
To learn what happens with flattening and color, you should refer to this excellent document, "Transparency in Adobe Applications: A Print Production Guide."
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/creativesuite/articles/cs3ip_printprodtrans.pdf
Here's are relevant section (page 24):
Printing transparency: step-by-step
When printing a page containing live transparency from InDesign CS3 and the Transparency Blend Space is set to Document CMYK, the following steps will take place (steps 3 and 6 may perform color conversions):
1 Transparency is detected on a spread by the Flattener.
2 The Flattener refers to the Transparency Blend Space setting to determine the appropriate color space in which to blend transparent objects. In this example, Document CMYK was selected. The Document CMYK color space is determined by the active color settings (Edit > Color Settings).
3 Any image that is tagged with a color space that differs from the selected blend space is converted to Document CMYK.
4 The Flattener flattens the transparency.
5 The flattened data is passed to the print engine.
6 The print engine compares the color information in the flattened data with the Printer Profile color space set in the Print dialog box. If the color settings dont match, the print engine converts the colors to the color space indicated by the Printer Profile.
7 The color-managed job is printed.

Indesign quit unexpectedly with this error " Transparency blend Space "

i need some hand-helping please
I just exported to pdf, and got this message, and would be happy to fix it if I had a clue what to do:
The document's transparency blend space doesn't match the destination color space specified in the Export Adobe PDF settings. To avoid color appearance changes in the PDF, click cancel and change either the document's transparency blend space, or the destination color space.
i’ve checked the Edit.Transparency Blend Space which is already on CMYK i have no PDF's placed in the document. also checked Adobe PDF Presets; "Output" tab; Change "Destination" to Document CMYK - U.S. Web Coated. which works for me.
but no matter which preset i pick ; as soon as indesign starts to make a PDF file InDesign has unexpectedly quit.
i though it might be fix with uninstall and reinstall .. done but the problem is still there i also try another file which i worked on before and they had no problem but the result are the same for them as well . I'm getting the same message I started with.
using cc version will be appreciate if any one could point me what is the problem and what to do ?

This probably has nothing to do with transparency or the blend space -- that's a common non-fatal error that crops up when you are using a color profile that doesn't match the one specified in the preset.
Start by trashing the prefs. See Replace Your Preferences
If that doesn't solve it, see Adobe Community: File Crashing on Output - printing/PDF/other

Watermark, color space, and transparency problem

I'm having a problem with inserting a watermark image into my pdfs.
I created the watermark image in Photoshop. It is 8-bit gray with a transparent background. I saved it as a pdf (pdf 1.4 to allow transparency).
The main pdfs (to be watermarked) are created through a seperate process (they are scans of old book pages). The pdfs are produced from 8-bit gray tiff images, but I cannot determine what color space the these pdfs are.
To the problem: in Acrobat 9, when I insert the watermark above, all of the blacks on the page shift to grey, as if the opacity was shifted lower. The opacity is set to 100%, so this should not be a problem! The watermark does have a transparent background, though.
Since this seems to be a color space conflict, if I save the watermark PDF in CYMK or RGB, it does not cause the tonal shift (blacks remain true), but the watermark now has an opaque background. I need it to be transparent, as the background of the files to be watermarked are not tonally consistent (old discolored paper).
I guess these are my questions:
(1) Is there any way to determine the color space of a PDF? File->Properties does not list color space.
(2) Why does the watermark PDF, saved in CYMK or RGB, not allow a transparent background? Is this an Acrobat issue or color space?
(3) Does anyone have an idea on how to solve this? :)
Thanks a bunch.

First, I have 2 questions: 1) How do the color and watermark background look when you have Advanced > Print Production > Output Preview open? 2) What version of Acrobat are you working in?
The most common reason that people see an almost "washed out" appearance (or looking as though additional opacity is applied) is due to a bug in Acrobat 8. This was fixed in the 8.1 dot release. One way to determine if this is what you are running into is to view the file with the Output Preview dialog open. If it views correctly then, make sure you have the update installed.
I don't work with watermarks, but understanding the general concept of watermarks it seems like a reasonable guess that they would use overprinting. I'm wonder if this is what is affecting the display of them (non-transparent background) since Acrobat needs Overprint Preview ON to accurately display objects with overprint flags . As with above, turning on Output Preview will help you deduce if that's what is happening since Output Preview automatically enables Overprint Preview (which is off by default).
BTW, Preflight will let you know what color spaces are in PDF file. Run any Profile. In the results panel, drop down the "Overview" section. There you will find a color spaces section listing the color spaces of the document.

ID all versions, both platforms: Transparency Blend Space

Under the Edit dropdown menu we have a "Transparency Blend Space" option which allows for two choices: Document RGB or Document CMYK. I need to select one of those choices programmatically, based upon input from the user.
In the documentation, I have found hla_TransparencyPreference, with a member function called SetBlendingSpace, and two enums, to wit: kRGBBlendingSpace and kCMYKBlendingSpace. I do not, however, see any examples of how they are used.
Has anyone used this obscure object and if so, would they be interested in sharing a snippet of their code which shows how to use it? I would greatly appreciate finding out.
TIA!
John

Have a look at kXPSetPreferencesCmdBoss, especially the IID_IXPSETPREFERENCESCMDDATA.
IID_IUIDDATA holds the document boss, Command item list is empty.

How to change the color picker/color space view?

I wanted to change the color picker/color space view to what it looks like in the other Adobe programs. I have gotten used to using the color picker from the other programs and I have had problems with the look and function of this color view.
In InDesign the color picker looks like this:
And the Photoshop/Illustrator/etc. looks like this:
I've tried changing the "Convert To Profile..." and the Transparency Blend Space, but neither have done anything to what I want to be done.
Is there some way to change this in InDesign?
Note: I want to change the looks of the gradient-like area if that isn't obvious.

I was wanting to do the same change as you, until I saw your two images.
Within the InDesign image you've selected a dark blue colour (R:16, G:49, B:152) AND you've got the (R)ed channel selected.
Within the Photoshop image you've selected a white colour(R:255, G:255, B:255) AND you've got the (H)ue channel selected.
In Photoshop I can recreate both of your images by having the same settings for RGB/CMYK and selecting the same channel item as you have in those images.
That's all.
There is no difference between the two colour selection dialogs except where the HSB, RGB, CMYK and LAB are placed.

Transparency preview - color faded

Hi,
I used PSD images (based on a transparent layer) and placed in a Indesign document. I used to export to PDF without no problems to preview in CS2. But now, when I open the document in Acrobat professional 8 (CS3) the color of the same tranparent images look faded, or pale. If I open the same document in Adobe Reader 7, no problem, colors are gloss and perfect.
Is there a setting that I have to setup to automatically see the right colors?
All my Adobe suite is synchronized for color settings.
Thank you!!

Just wanted to let you know you are not alone. I've been experiencing the same color issues with multi-page CMYK PDFs with transparency created in InDesign CS3 on Acrobat 8 (I'm running the latest version 8.1.2 on 10.4.11).
Any page that has transparency on it has a huge color shift (It almost looks like it has been converted to RGB). Pages without transparent objects print fine. The same PDF in Acrobat 7 will print with the correct colors on both types of pages.
The PDFs were exported from InDesign CS3 with the Transparency Blend Space set to CMYK and the PDF set to "Press Quality." All images in the document were in CMYK. The PDFs were printed on a Xerox Phaser 7400. Same print settings used in both Acrobat 7 & 8.

Problem with cmyk transparency blending in Indesign cs6

Hello everyone! Please give me someone an information about this issue...
All i have in indesign is cmyk color space in all contents, i have set up the transparency blending option to CMYK (edit > transparency blending > cmyk) but when i set the gradient feather on image 1 i have very bad result the transparency is greyscaled not transparent.
I try everything but nothin works for me, please help me somebody.
example 1 show the bad result in cmyk blending transparency
example 2 show the better result with rgb blending transparency with cmyk contents !!!
why i can not set the cmyk transparency blending option? because i have bad result and i do not uderstand that

please explain me the difference in this proces because i do not understand that...
The effect of transparency changes depending on the color mode, that's why you get this warning when you try to change color modes in Photoshop when there is transparency:
I can replicate your problem in Photoshop by layering transparent black on an RGB and CMYK version of the same image (Here are the 2 example files—http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/TransExample.zip) :
InDesign makes things even more complex because you can have different transparent color modes on the same page and you can choose different blending spaces. If color is important I take the extra time to create transparency in a Photoshop RGB file where there's more color contol and I can see the affect of a CMYK conversion and flattening.

Asking the Bridge Team: Bridge "working color space" setting when one does not have the Suite?

Common sense tells me there is really no such thing as a
"working color space" in Bridge, because
Bridge is not an image editor, just a browser
Therefore, this may turn out to be a purely academic question; but that doesn't keep my curiosity from forcing me to ask it anyway. ;)
Is there a way to set the Bridge
"color settings" when one does not have the suite?
The only Adobe program I keep up to date is Photoshop, so I've never had the suite. My version of Photoshop is 11 (CS4) and I run updated
(not upgraded) versions of Adobe Acrobat 7.x, Illustrator 10.x and InDesign 2.x. Consequently, the Synchronize color settings command is not available to me.
It seems to me that Bridge is behaving like a proper color-managed browser (e.g. Firefox with color management enabled), in that it displays tagged image files correctly and assumes sRGB for untagged image files. This normally works fine.
But what if I wanted Bridge to assume my
Photoshop color working space for untagged images
so that it behaves the same as Photoshop? I'm just curious, as I deal with a minuscule, practically negligible amount of untagged files.
My reason for bringing it up now is that I don't recall this being explicitly mentioned in forum replies when users inquire about color settings in Bridge. A recent post regarding Version Cue in the Photoshop Macintosh forum got me thinking about this. Just wanting to make sure that I'm right in my assumption that
there is really no such thing as a
"working color space" in Bridge, because Bridge is not an image editor, just a browser.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Ramón,
Thanks for sharing the outcome of your tests. However, I may have found a bug/exception to Bridge's colour management policy!
It appears that CMYK EPS photoshop files are not colour managed in Adobe Bridge, even if they contain an embedded ICC profile.
I've tried every combination in the EPS 'Save As' dialogue box, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with file encoding. Also, Bridge doesn't rely on the low-res preview that is held within the EPS itself.
My guess is that Bridge is previewing the CMYK EPS with a Bridge-generated RGB image, but it's being displayed as monitor RGB (assigned) rather than colour managed (converted to monitor RGB). For most users the difference will be barely perceptible, but the problem became very noticeable when using Bridge to preview Newsprint CMYK images on a wide-gamut monitor (images that should have appeared muted really leapt off the screen!).
How do I report this to the Colour Police at Adobe?!?

PDF in CMYK color space?

I'm working on the most recent version of Pages from iWork 2008 running on the most recent version of Leopard, and I have to create a PDF in the CMYK color space for publication, but I do not have Acrobat Distiller.
Is it possible to create a CMYK PDF with ColorSync filters? I have tried using the "Generate PDF-X/3" filter, with "Generic CMYK" as the target profile and transparency flattening, but the printer still says that my PDF is in the RGB color space. If not, is there any other way to create a CMYK PDF from Pages or to convert a RGB PDF or PostScript file to CMYK using ColorSync Utility? Are there any alternatives without purchasing Adobe Acrobat? What about if I first convert images to the CMYK color space before importing them to Pages?
I have seen similar questions posted elsewhere, but I can't find a straight answer anywhere.

1. Obtain the ICC profile from the printer for his output device.
Correct. Either the shop printing condition or an ISO 12647 printing condition to which the shop can configure and calibrate the printing condition it is selling you. If the latter, you can get default ICC printer profiles for standard printing conditions at www.eci.org.
2. Create a filter in ColorSync Utility for generating PDF/X-3 documents with the ICC profile as the output intent (besides flattening the transparency and applying an appropriate resolution).
Correct.
3. Print to PDF in Pages.
Incorrect.
Your PDF/X-3 filter will become available in the system dialog for File > Print > Save as PDF. In saving as PDF you pick your PDF/X-3 filter as the template for the save process.
4. Use ColorSync Utility to modify the resulting PDF with the filter I created in ColorSync Utility.
(or 3-4. Print directly to PDF through the filter from Pages)
Your second step to combine 3 and 4 is correct, your first step 4 to save to disk and then postprocess in the ColorSync utility is incorrect.
5. Send this PDF/X-3 to the printer.
Correct.
It seems that no hard conversion from RGB to CMYK should be necessary if I take these steps, is that correct?
Correct.
If I send the printer a PDF in the RGB color space, should it cause problems for him to convert the PDF himself to the color space of his output device?
No.
You create three channel RGB images in the RGB colourant data model (it's just a model, it is not a colour space which a size and a shape of the gamut).
You save your colourants to disk in TIFF or PDF format with the ICC profile for the capture colour space (e.g. the ICC profile for your specific scanner with a Kodak EktaChrome IT8) or correction colour space (e.g. Joseph Holmes' RGB working space for EktaChrome). This ICC profile is the _colour space_ that you can view in the ColorSync Utility as a specific size and shape of gamut. The colour space determines what colours the colourants in your TIFF or PDF image should reproduce on different colour devices.
You now have a pagination with photographic objects in three component RGB, and you know what colours those colourants are supposed to reproduce. You then include the production profile for the printing condition. Your source profiles must match to this destination profile in the matching session, so all your photographs get converted to the SAME ink limit, the SAME graybalance and so forth. This unifies the inking behaviour and the colour formation for your printing.
If you imagine that in your pagination you place photographs which are manually converted into four component CMYK using a different ink limit, a different graybalance and so forth then you have not unified your inking behavour and colour formation for the printing process. This is IDIOTIC because the only way to correct in this case is to change the calibration of the individual inking zones on the offset press - increasing or decreasing the cyan, magenta, yellow or black for that zone.
It used to be that lithography on the press was the only way to work. This was in the days of EPS and EPS DCS, and before that in the days of photographic printing masters pasted together manually piece by piece to make the printing planes. Nobody in their right mind works that way today.
/hh

Different results of color space conversion

I am converting a raw image.
1. First in ProPhoto, passing it to PS CS3, accepting ProPhoto (against the working color space), and then I convert it in sRGB in Edit.
2. Next, converting it in ProPhoto, but when CS3 receives it, I ask for immediate conversion in sRGB, the working space.
3. Third, I change the color sapace in ACR to sRGB and pass the image to CS3.
Of course, the ACR adjustment parameters are identical in the three processes.
1 and 3 are almost identical (a difference layer does show differences, but I don't see them on the results without huge boosting, and that shows quite random, noise-like difference).
However, 1 and 2 are *vastly* different. The difference, boosted by 2 EV clearly shows the original texture, which is determined by a pecularity in the blue channel.
What is the explanation for the difference between the two conversion from ProPhoto to sRGB?
The conversion engine is Adobe (the conversion immediately at receiving the image does not ask me for the engine).
http://www.panopeeper.com/Download/ProPhoto_to_sRGB_Discrepancy.tif contains three layers with the three versions.
http://www.panopeeper.com/Download/ProPhoto_to_sRGB_inProPhoto.tif is the unconverted, i.e. ProPhoto version.

> I played around a bit with your samples and I could get close to your "Converted when receiving" version by using the Microsoft ICM engine (other options like Dither and Black point comp didn't produce big differences that I could see). Is it possible that is what you have as the engine in Edit>Color Settings?
As I posted, I am using the Adobe engine.
> I reproduced your exact steps (but in CS4), and there was no difference whatsoever between the three. Pitch black in difference blend mode.
I don't understand how you reproduced these steps. The file I uploaded is already in sRGB.
Anyway, I repeated the entire procedude carefully, the result is the same.
The raw file can be downloaded from http://www.panopeeper.com/Download/CCC_ISO0100_01208.ARW, the adjustment parameters are in http://www.panopeeper.com/Download/CCC_ISO0100_01208.xmp
With these files it is possible to repeate the entire process.
Pls note, that the conversion from raw to TIFF occured in 16bit mode, I converted the demo file to 8bit in order to reduce the size.

Transparency blend color space in Illustrator

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