Transparency flattening compression quality

Hi,
In Acrobat 9, an important option was missing for transparency flattening: the compression quality setting. I found that it is now available in Acrobat XI. When I saw that, I thought that my problems with flattening were a thing of the past. Well... no. I use preflight droplets to process the PDF files and the compression quality is not present in the prefilght options. Why is the quality setting available in the Transparency Flattening dialog box and not in the prefilght profile? And, if not present, why did Acrobat choose to use the "Fast processing" quality instead of "Best quality" for transparency flattening done with preflight?
Thanks!

First off, a SD (DVDs are SD) image will never look as good as a High Def Image but you probably know that.
It appears you have made a copy of the Apple preset for DVD compression, that's what we want.
Open up the MPEG-2 Setting and click to the third menu (Frame Controls), click the sprocket button to allow Frame Controls to be ON, Resize Filter should be Better and Adaptive Details should be checked, move the Anti-Alias slider to 35 and try compressing again.
You can play with these sliders to reduce aliasing (stair-stepping) and/or increase detail (enhance edges)

Similar Messages

Transparency flattening - unwanted color added to transparent PSD files (IDCS3)

Recently (after switching to CS3) I began experiencing frustrating problems in relation to (what I think is the problem) transparency flattening.
The problem seems to evolve in the printing process where "something" messes up the transparency by adding a 1% (typically) magenta color to the transparent flattened image. (I´m using transparent PSD-files)
This means that the bounding box-area of the image is actually visible in print! I can see this on my own prints (tested on several in-house printers), but worse is that I´m having the same problem with the material I receive from the printing house.
- When I check my PSD files in Photoshop there is no color but a transparent background.
- In Indesign I´ve tried a lot of different output settings and job option files but with the same result.
- In Acrobat my "output preview" measures no deviations, but when I (touch up tool > right click) edit image from inside Acrobat and the image file opens up in Photoshop the 1% is added.
For now I´m dealing with the problem by adding clipping paths to my PSD files which is a pretty untenable situation!
Apparently the problems seems to occur also on transparent .tiff filer etc.
I´m working in CS3 on OSX and I haven´t changed my workflow whatsoever since CS2.
The printing house is aware of the problem but haven´t experienced the problem before.

Sounds to me like an RGB/CMYK colour space issue.
If your image is in RGB but your InDesign document export settings are for CMYK (or vice versa) then you have Adobe converting the colours for you. Since there is a colour shift between the two colour spaces, you have no control over how the conversion happens.
In photoshop, "white" is not the same between RGB and CMYK and I often find there is 1 or 2% magenta in the mix (just as you're finding) when going from RGB to CMYK.
The transparency flattener function is pretty much the same as flattening the layers in photoshop - when it gets to the bottom layer you get one image with a box around it. the same in InDesign - everything that has a transparency (including images with no background) is flattened down on all the objects underneath to create a single image. If the transparent object is just on the paper then it gets a white box around it.
I suggest you check that your images are converted to CMYK in photoshop, and that your PDF export settings in InDesign convert all colours to CMYK. then ensure you use the High Quality in the transparency flattener settings.
Good luck!

Help with Transparency Flattener!

I'm working with an Indesign file that has Illustrator links, which contain gradient meshes that use transparency. When I export my Indesign file, the transparency flattener does something very strange to the gradient mesh: it displays the vector lines of the mesh as dark grey lines.
I've found a way around this problem, but it is not ideal. If I export the file as Acrobat 4, I can change the transparancy flattener settings, and eliminate the issue. However, if I use Acrobat 4, I also lose the ability to add hyperlinks in the document (of which I have a number) Why is that that if you use a higher version of acrobat (5 or above) you suddenly lose the ability to manage the transparancy flattener? Why would older versions of the product allow more freedom and control?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Below are screeshots of what it looks like in illustrator, and then flattened but the default flatteners of acrobat 5 and above. Really, I just want to be able to achieve a customized flattener that doesn't contain those dark lines, but not have to use actobat 4 to do it.
Thanks!
jason

Hi Steve—
Your questions have half solved my problem for me!
I'm using the latest version of Indesign (7.5) and Illustrator (15.1.0)
I'm exporting using the High Quality Print setting (I know, a bit strange to use this setting AND want hyperlinks, but the PDF is intended for web distribution to people who might decide to print it) and when I choose anything above acrobat 4 in the compatibility drop down (5, 6, 7...) then the transparency flattener is greyed out in the advanced tab, with medium set as the default. If i want to choose my own flattener settings, I have to go with PDF 4, at which point I lose hyperlinks. I've also tried exporting choosing Adobe PDF (Interactive) from the initial menu, but that results in the same lines in the gradient mesh.
However, it turns out this issue is only happening when viewing the pdf in apple's preview app. It actually looks fine in acrobat. However, seeing as how Preview is the default app for viewing PDFs on a mac, I'm concerned that a bulk of our audience will be seeing it this way.
I know this likely puts things out of the realm of adobe, but if you have any wisdom to impart, I'd appreciate it. Attached is what the file looks like viewed acrobat (above) and preview (below).
thanks!
jason

Stitch lines created in a PDF/X-1a due to transparency flattening during export from InDesign

Has there been any sure fire methods to avoid the digital stitch lines created in a PDF/X-1a due to transparency flattening during export from InDesign? If I attempt to edit the PDF using the Acrobat Edit Text and Graphics tool the PDF is actually carved into sectors and images are not selectable as a whole. Also contrary to what I have read those white lines do indeed image from time to time. I could export as PDF/X4 to preserve the transparency but on occasion it would be advantageous to flatten it before supplying to the printer. Currently using CC and have done the usual things in an attempt to avoid the lines such as all text above transparent objects on a separate layer and 'Clip-Complex-Region' on export.
Thanks in Advance!

If the default High Res flattener preset is stitching make a custom preset that's all rasters and use it in the advanced tab of the PDF/X-1a preset

Acrobat 9 Transparency Flattening Colour Shift

Hi all,
This is something I found out the hard way, and it seems like a real trap in Acrobat 9.
I have a document prepared in ID, exported to PDF/X-4 with all profiles included. The document is prepared in RGB model (AdobeRGB), because we're printing in house on Epson 4800 tabloid printer.
All looks fine onscreen in Acrobat. (Colour managed setup etc).
But when printing to the Epson, the images have poor shadow detail and are darker than they should be.
I eventually figured out that it is to do with the colour space used for Transparency Flattening. It took me a while to find it, but by default it is set to "Device RGB" on my system in the Flattener Preview. When I changed it to Adobe RGB, which is the colour working space used in the document, the prints come out correctly.
Observations:
1. Changing the colour space for flattening is not persistent as a general setting, but you can save it back to the PDF.
2. Even though it appears on the same dialog, the colour space is not stored with the transparency flattener presets.
3. This setting has an ongoing effect on how the document is printed (i.e. after the dialog is closed), even though the dialog leads you to believe it only relates to flattening preview.
What puzzles me is why this setting can't be put there with the correct value when ID generates the PDF.
Is there anything else I've overlooked here? This seems like a really nasty little trap for the unwary.
MT

Hi all,
This is something I found out the hard way, and it seems like a real trap in Acrobat 9.
I have a document prepared in ID, exported to PDF/X-4 with all profiles included. The document is prepared in RGB model (AdobeRGB), because we're printing in house on Epson 4800 tabloid printer.
All looks fine onscreen in Acrobat. (Colour managed setup etc).
But when printing to the Epson, the images have poor shadow detail and are darker than they should be.
I eventually figured out that it is to do with the colour space used for Transparency Flattening. It took me a while to find it, but by default it is set to "Device RGB" on my system in the Flattener Preview. When I changed it to Adobe RGB, which is the colour working space used in the document, the prints come out correctly.
Observations:
1. Changing the colour space for flattening is not persistent as a general setting, but you can save it back to the PDF.
2. Even though it appears on the same dialog, the colour space is not stored with the transparency flattener presets.
3. This setting has an ongoing effect on how the document is printed (i.e. after the dialog is closed), even though the dialog leads you to believe it only relates to flattening preview.
What puzzles me is why this setting can't be put there with the correct value when ID generates the PDF.
Is there anything else I've overlooked here? This seems like a really nasty little trap for the unwary.
MT

Acrobat 9 Pro - Change Image Compression/Quality w/ Javascript?

Hello,
I've got a folder-level script that will merge PDFs by using "insertPages" to add a list of PDFs to a new document. The file size is too large, and I've noticed that if I go into the PDF Optimizer manually and change the Image Settings so the compression quality is "low" for both Color images adn Grayscale images, it brings the file size down to where I need it to be.
My question is, can I do this in my script somehow? I don't see anything in the Javascript Reference or Acrobat SDK about updating images within document. I'd really like to automate this optimization within my script.
Has anyone ever done this before?
Many thanks in advance!

Thanks again for your reply!
Well the output folder could change... and really, it would be most ideal to not even save the single PDFs (although it looks like I might have to). All I need to accomplish is to take a folder of PDFs and merge them into one PDF (but it must be optimized and cropped). I don't need the new, saved versions of the single PDFs. I feel like my "automation" solution to this will end up being more tedious than manually clicking "combine" and merging PDFs that way, and applying the crop settings afterward. Maybe I am making this more difficult than it needs to be? Here is what I'm doing:
1. I have a folder level script that executes when Acrobat loads whichs adds two menu items. The first opens up the Batch Sequences menu so the user doesn't have to find them.
2. From here, the user will need to run a batch sequence that will optimize and crop each PDF and save them to an output folder.
3. Now the user will need to run another batch sequence (and choose the output folder from step 2 as the input folder now) that will collect all the file paths of the optimized PDFs.
4. Now the user can use my other menu item from step 1 that will execute a folder level script and merge the PDFs by inserting them into a new document.
5. I can prompt the user here to save the new document somewhere.
It seems like there should be an easier way to do this. Is it not possible to merge the PDFs in a batch sequence and then use the output folder to save the one new PDF (rather than each of the input PDFs)?

Why can I not select the transparency flattener preset option when exporting to a pdf?

Hi all,
I have not had to use this option in quite a while so may have forgotten a few things.
In InDesign, under Edit>Transparency Flattener Presets, I have created a new preset and included the option of converting all text to outlines.
However, when I try to export to a PDF, the option to select a transparency flattener preset is greyed out.
Can you tell me what I may be doing wrong? This is driving me crazy!:(
(There was originally no transparency in the file, so I created some with a white square set to 0.5% opacity).
Thanks in advance for your help!
Best regards,
Christine

DesignerDave72,
Thank you SO MUCH!!
I have been battling with this for over an hour...and it was frustrating me no end. 1 minute into reading the article you suggested and I was home free!! THANK YOU...!! You're my hero!
Best regards,
Christine

Stitch lines created when transparency flattened in PDF/X1a export from ID

Has there been any sure fire methods to avoid the digital stitch lines created in a PDF/X-1a due to transparency flattening during export from InDesign? Currently using CC and have done the usual things in an attempt to avoid the lines such as all text above transparent objects on a separate layer and 'Clip-Complex-Region' on export.
Thanks in Advance!

Hi Tony ,
This seems to be an InDesign issue .
Please report the same on the below mentioned link .
InDesign
Regards
Sukrit Dhingra

Transparency flattener/overprint issue?

as per my post title suggests i have experienced an issue that i think maybe something related to either the transparency flattener settings or overprint.
i have received some pdf files from a client which i put into indesign CS4. I add some company information and then output a pdf (export from indesign profile PDFX 1a 2001) ready for print.
when receiving the clients pdfs which i have noticed where created in CS5 have no overprint settings applied to the file at all. (See image below)
Shot at 2011-10-27
after creating my pdf it has set elements to overprint. why is this? All i have done is add the original pdfs into indesign and output them again! is indesign managing the overprint settings without my knowledge? (See image below)
Shot at 2011-10-27
All of this was brought to light after the job had been printed! but for some reason it has knocked out some of the elements set to overprint rather than over printed them. You will notice from the image below that the stars on the left have come out correct but the stars on the top right have not! apart from the part over the image.
Shot at 2011-10-27
A colleague of mine at work seems to think the issue has something to do with the transparency flattener settings when a vector graphic connects with a bitmapped image.
Does anyone have any knowledge or experience into what has happened here and could help me resolve this issue from occuring in the future? as i need to provide an explanation to my client. as it has baffled my printer! and he has no answers!
thanks in advance.
Dazzlag

I’m asking because unless there’s a real good reason, you shouldn’t be flattening transparency yourself. In fact, fully modern workflows don’t flatten it at all.
And yes, it would be a good idea to find out what settings your client used. But my first guess is that they used transparency, not overprint to achieve that effect.
Bob

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

Automate Loading of Transparency Flattener Preset

For a project I'm working on we need for our users to have a particular transparency flattener preset loaded. I'm not finding a way to load it ahead of time. I can verify if it's loaded, which is helpful:
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
     set flattenerPresets to flattener presets
     if flattenerPresets does not contain "NameOfFlattenerPreset" then
          --do whatever magic is necessary to load the preset
     end if
end tell
Because of a bug in Illustrator I can't use UI scripting via AppleScript to automate the import. The issue here is that Illustrator doesn't respond to the "click" command properly when it comes to checkboxes and buttons.
Another option would be to just place a copy of the preset file into the proper location on the hard drive so that Illustrator sees it. Problem is, I can't seem to determine where that is. Adobe seems to be hiding it somewhere. I manually loaded a preset and then moved it from that location on the hard drive. I re-launched Illustrator and it still had the preset.
At this point I'm not sure how to automate the loading of this preset. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Stephan
Version Info:
Illustrator CS4
Mac OS X 10.5.8

I don't think its possible to load a preset from AppleScript. Can't your script just supply the flattening options at which ever point they are required?
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
set This_Flatten to {class:flattening options, clip complex regions:true, convert strokes to outlines:true, convert text to outlines:true, flattening balance:100, gradient resolution:600, overprint:preserve, rasterization resolution:300}
end tell

Set 'transparency flattener presets' to [High Resolution]

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS9327D15E-A9FF-4698-BDA5-8791A891D061.ht ml
I am editing thousands of images that need to be exported as High Res .eps's.
Is there a way to make [High Resolution] the default rather than [Medium Resolution] ?

edit this file
user/(yourname)/library/preferences/adobe Ilustrator 4 settings/en us/Transparency Flattener Presets
Collection 2 is your default so I edited those values to match the screenshot below hope I got them right. Replace the code with below (keep a backup of original just in case)
/collection3 {
/attributes {
/AI9\ Mesh\ Rasterization\ Resolution 144.0
/AI9\ Output\ Rasterization\ Resolution 288.0
/AI10\ flattener\ raster-vector\ balance 75
/AI10\ flattener\ clip\ complex\ regions 0
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ strokes 1
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ text 0
/collectionName [ 16
5b4c6f77205265736f6c7574696f6e5d
/canEdit 0
/canDelete 0
/collection2 {
/attributes {
/AI9\ Mesh\ Rasterization\ Resolution 300.0
/AI9\ Output\ Rasterization\ Resolution 1200.0
/AI10\ flattener\ raster-vector\ balance 100
/AI10\ flattener\ clip\ complex\ regions 1
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ strokes 0
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ text 0
/collectionName [ 19
5b4d656469756d205265736f6c7574696f6e5d
/canEdit 0
/canDelete 0
/collection1 {
/attributes {
/AI9\ Mesh\ Rasterization\ Resolution 300.0
/AI9\ Output\ Rasterization\ Resolution 1200.0
/AI10\ flattener\ raster-vector\ balance 100
/AI10\ flattener\ clip\ complex\ regions 1
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ strokes 0
/AI10\ flattener\ outline\ text 0
/collectionName [ 17
5b48696768205265736f6c7574696f6e5d
/canEdit 0
/canDelete 0
/Sketch {
/Version 1
/Description (Flattener catalog for AI11)
/Owner (AI11 Flattener Catalog Manager)
/NumberOfCollections 3
/CatalogName (AI11 Flattener Presets)
A different version I made with the help of Carlso Canto, worked for me to slide the vector balance to bitmapped . So hope the code above works for you.

Strange Transparency flattener preset appearing

I'm in AI CS3 and when I go to the transparency flattener presets, there's always one in there with japanese characters. I delete it and it comes back next time. What's up with that?
Randy

Thanks, to get this working in a server script, I ended up just programmatically creating the flattener preset, rather than worrying about the .flst files. (Java code below)
//Setup Transparency Flattener (if not in application)
FlattenerPreset flattenerPreset = app.getNamedChildFlattenerPreset("Test");
if (flattenerPreset == null) {
      flattenerPreset = app.addFlattenerPreset();
      flattenerPreset.setName("Test");
      flattenerPreset.setRasterVectorBalance(VariableTypeUtils.createLong(100));
      flattenerPreset.setLineArtAndTextResolution(2400.0);
      flattenerPreset.setGradientAndMeshResolution(400.0);
      flattenerPreset.setConvertAllTextToOutlines(false);
      flattenerPreset.setConvertAllStrokesToOutlines(false);
      flattenerPreset.setClipComplexRegions(false);
pdfPreset.setAppliedFlattenerPreset(flattenerPreset);

Installing Transparency Flattener Preset for Indesign Server CS4

I'm trying to figure out how to install a transparency flattener preset for InDesign Server CS4.
I can see how they are installed for the InDesign app. Edit -> Transparency Flattener Presets...
But I'm not sure which directory to install these on for the server.
I've seen a post that mentions:
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\Version 6.0\en_US\Transparency Flattener Presets
/Users/<UserName>/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 6.0/en_US/Transparency Flattener Presets
for the Desktop version. But when I place files here even for the CS4 Desktop, they don't seem to show up in the UI.
Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks,
Dennis

Thanks, to get this working in a server script, I ended up just programmatically creating the flattener preset, rather than worrying about the .flst files. (Java code below)
//Setup Transparency Flattener (if not in application)
FlattenerPreset flattenerPreset = app.getNamedChildFlattenerPreset("Test");
if (flattenerPreset == null) {
      flattenerPreset = app.addFlattenerPreset();
      flattenerPreset.setName("Test");
      flattenerPreset.setRasterVectorBalance(VariableTypeUtils.createLong(100));
      flattenerPreset.setLineArtAndTextResolution(2400.0);
      flattenerPreset.setGradientAndMeshResolution(400.0);
      flattenerPreset.setConvertAllTextToOutlines(false);
      flattenerPreset.setConvertAllStrokesToOutlines(false);
      flattenerPreset.setClipComplexRegions(false);
pdfPreset.setAppliedFlattenerPreset(flattenerPreset);

Transparency Flattener Settings

I have been getting conflicting information about the settings for the transparency flattener preset options when creating PDFs out of InDesign and I wanted to get things straight. From one side I was told to change the setting to read: Raster/Vector Balance 100, Line Art Text Res 2400 ppi and Gradient Mesh Res 300 ppi. And the other side says that the High Resolution default settings work just fine and that these settings are like the appendix in CS3, totally unnecessary! I am working in CS3 and use the PDF/X-1a:2001 setting to export. Any insight would be great, thanks.

The only difference between [High res] and the values you quote is "Line Art Text Res 2400 ppi"
And the only time that is used (as long as "vector-pixel" is set to 100) is when you use an effect (say a drop shadow) with a softness of less than 0.5pt.
I.e. the quoted values give you a better result for very hard effects at the price of 4 times the data volumen in the PDF.
You yourself must decide if you need your hard shadows in 2400ppi or 1200ppi.

Transparency flattening compression quality

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