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!

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Photoshop CS6 colors have shifted for PSD files; no longer match Bridge colors, resulting jpg colors off too

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I went back to the DNG files and opened each up separately in PS - the color looked good. I edited them, saved them as PSD files, and reopened them in PS - the colors were bad.
I cleared the Preferences (by holding Ctrl+Alt+Shift) when restarting PS. Although it cleared up the pre-existing issue explained below **, it didn't fix the issue with the colors.
I rebooted my computer. No luck.
I looked for available updates. None available.
I recalibrated my monitor (ColorMunki). No luck.
I don't know what I did/what happened to cause the problem. The day before, everything was fine.
I tried to fix it by experimenting with option under View. The closest I could get the colors to matching those shown in Bridge was to set View--Proof Colors-- Monitor RGB.
But here's the kicker - when I did a "save as" in PS the resulting jpeg had the same gross color shown in PS before setting the proof colors to Monitor RGB - and the jpeg colors are gross in Bridge and PS! The same thing happens if I run a batch of PSDs via Bridge and save them as jpegs. The resulting jpegs look gross in both PS and Bridge.
HELP!
I'm using a PC with Windows 7. All the images jpegs, DNG and PSD are in the RBG color space.
**(except for one weird issue - when I would try to open up a color balance layer, it would open a levels layer instead)

Until last night, Photoshop has been working relatively well** (see below) However, I processed a batch of DNG files through Bridge and saved them as PSDs. When I opened up the new PSD files in PSCS5, the colors had shifted - more green, less saturated.
I went back to the DNG files and opened each up separately in PS - the color looked good. I edited them, saved them as PSD files, and reopened them in PS - the colors were bad.
I cleared the Preferences (by holding Ctrl+Alt+Shift) when restarting PS. Although it cleared up the pre-existing issue explained below **, it didn't fix the issue with the colors.
I rebooted my computer. No luck.
I looked for available updates. None available.
I recalibrated my monitor (ColorMunki). No luck.
I don't know what I did/what happened to cause the problem. The day before, everything was fine.
I tried to fix it by experimenting with option under View. The closest I could get the colors to matching those shown in Bridge was to set View--Proof Colors-- Monitor RGB.
But here's the kicker - when I did a "save as" in PS the resulting jpeg had the same gross color shown in PS before setting the proof colors to Monitor RGB - and the jpeg colors are gross in Bridge and PS! The same thing happens if I run a batch of PSDs via Bridge and save them as jpegs. The resulting jpegs look gross in both PS and Bridge.
HELP!
I'm using a PC with Windows 7. All the images jpegs, DNG and PSD are in the RBG color space.
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Boxes printing around PSD files placed in IDD

I have an inDesign file that I've placed many PSD files in and when I go to print the PDF, boxes appear around some of the PSD files. This also happens in Illustrator. Am I not supposed to place PSD files? What other options do I have? I tried .png for the illustrator file but it didn't work so I ended up rasterizing the files but I'm sure there's a better way and I'm afraid embedding all of them will make the file gigantic. Thanks in advance for your help
amy

Amy,
You should be able to place PSD and AI files without issue.
What colour are these boxes? If they're white it could be transparency settings (or transparency blend space).
See here: http://indesignsecrets.com/eliminating-the-white-box-effect.php
To find out quickly, try exporting to a PDF x1a. If the problem disappears you have a transparency issue.
Have you checked the psd files and object boxes for the offending stroke?

Is there anything in the world wrong with "placing" a PSD file in CS5?

Friends,
EMERGENCY !
I need to know if there's anything wrong with "placing" ( + D) a PSD photograph in CS5??
I was using PNG, but Photoshop won't save as CMYK .png files.
I was using .tif files, but TIF files don't preserve transparency.
Therefore, can I just use .PSD files? They seem to work just fine ...
Help! Thanks!

Since we're talking about InDesign CS5, there is a wrinkle.
Dov Isaacs wrote:
(1) TIFF files certainly do preserve transparency. Make sure you select that option when saving TIFF.
And unfortunate pragmatic isue is that Photoshop CS6 changed the way it stores transparency in TIFF files, and it stopped saving obsolete legacy data. And InDesign CS5 (but not CS6) depended on that legacy data. So if you're using PS CS6 and ID CS5 (the subject here indicates ID CS5) and you care about transparency, it's not a good idea to use TIFF.
(Personally I would tend to want to use TIFF, if this were not the case.)
I think this "bug" got fixed in ID CS5.5 (#3073238), but I don't think it is fixed in CS6 CS5.
Edit: not fixed in CS5! Not "not fixed in CS6"

Psd file wash out when add transparency to page

HI,
I've had a noticeable yet unknown problem, and today I figured out why, but now need help fixing it.
Working with CS2
When I import a grayscale psd file into ID, it gets washed out when I add a transparent element to the page. My page started out in the page Window as a solid white background, and changed to transparent when I added the transparent element next to it. At the same time, my nicely contrasted grayscale psd image (contains levels adjustment layer) became washed out and lighter. This is the first time I've actually watched it happen as I added a transparent element - probably because often transparent elements are added before my photos.(this explains the poor image quality I've had in the past - always thought it was a calibration issue on my monitor).
So my question is, how do I get the page (icon in the pages window) to be solid white again? or at least not weaken my grayscale images?
I had a printout before I added the transparent box, the image printed nicely. Now the image prints washed out just as on the screen. (printing using "Send All Data" for image output.
I'm working in Doc CMYK, transparency flattener is set to Doc CMYK, turned on overprint preview, tried isolating the blending, knocking it out, re-placing the psd file, adding a solid white box behind it (a no-no, I know, but was for testing purposes) all to no avail.
I'm sure there must be a setting somewhere, but I'm not finding it.
I'm grateful for any help I can get!

How are you printing? Are there any CMYK elements on the page?
Most desktop printers are really RGB devices. You may find you get better results if you change the transparency blend space to RGB.
Peter

How do I transfer a .psd file to illustrator that can then be placed in Muse as a .svg with transparent background?

I just wrote all this up in another thread. I did not realize at the time that the last post was in 2014, so I'm giving it a go here.
I am currently trying to create an .svg using Photoshop .psd file (with layers in tact). I'm new to these products so it may be obvious to others that the above intention was to eventually place the .svg in some sort of website creation software such as Muse. Which is precisely what I am attempting. However, I am getting a white background once I place or copy and paste into Muse. My starting .psd has a transparent background without any hidden layers causing this problem. To test this I placed the .psd file into Muse and it still has a transparent background. However when opening or placing this file into illustrator, it picks up a white background. If I do exactly as described above, I still get the same result. So far I have tried:
1) Simple copy and paste from Photoshop .svg to illustrator to Muse. Result - white background.
2) Placing the .psd in illustrator, then placing the .svg file in muse. Result - white background.
4) I have also tried the every combination of 1 and 2. - Result - white background.
3) I have now created a path in Photoshop from the text layer to yet again attempt the above methods. Result - white background.
I'm including an image of the object I am trying to place with transparent background, but I have both a flattened rasterized version, a version complete with layers and a third (.svg) with the corresponding objects. I am completely new to Illustrator as of today so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Link to .psd file "Welcome text"

I was having some difficulties getting the correct dimensions of one of my objects, I eventually solved this problem without using svg. It was pretty simple when I stopped trying to over complicate things. I just linked the object to a near by object in photoshop, merged and placed it all as one. It looks great now. Thanks for your reply. You are correct, SVG was not the answer.

Transparency Issues with PSD files in FCP 7

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I exported my PSD files out of Photoshop, with each layer being exported to its own file. In general, things were fine, but there were a few files where you could see the outline of the character against the background, but mind you that this is only visible once the video is rendered out in the FCP timeline. Nothing is visible in Photoshop, nor is it visible while viewing from the Browser in FCP. I told this to the artist and he went back and made corrections, making sure everything was on a transparent background, but the result was still the same - once I rendered the graphics out in FCP, these edge lines were visible.
I then went back into Photoshop, opened all the files that were giving me trouble, clicked on the "foreground color" and changed it to a color other than white, then back to white and hit ok. That seemed to work - even when rendered out, I was getting no artifacts, until I tried enlarging the graphics over 100%.
Also, with some of the same graphics, I was trying to layer them so that a guy was in the foreground with other people and a van behind him in the background. Once again, no problem in Photoshop, but once brought into FCP, the background people were actually being displayed over the main foreground character.
I'm pretty baffled - what to do? I'll attach a photo of the weird lines around the characters. It might be hard to see at this size, but if you download and enlarge it to 300% or so, you'll see what I mean.

Just saw that Adam's original post was an older one. Will keep this here anyway to maybe help the most recent poster.
Sharon
Adam, did you try what David said about pointing to the root folder? Did that work?
When I copy the SD card, I name a new folder on my hard drive something specific, like Smith Wedding. Then I copy everything inside the SD card to that new folder. The first level inside my new folder now has folders for
AVF_INFO
PRIVATE
and on down from there. When you open Log and Transfer, point it to the Smith Wedding folder (of course whatever you have named yours).
ClipWrap2 also works great to convert the files beforehand if you want.
What camera are you using? I have the Sony NX30 and it was giving me fits because the .mts files don't ingest if the clips are longer than 11 min. My problem is that I'm still on FCP 6.0.6. I think 7.0.3 fixed that. But I did find enough work-arounds to keep the camera.
This is a link to the full discussion if you are interested.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19085158#19085158
Sharon
Message was edited by: SSteele

I place a psd file with transparent background on another layer in my InDesign document. The layer b

I placed a psd file with transparent background on another layer in my InDesign document. The layer below has a color (RGB). When the psd file is placed it changes the color on the layer below. I've tried other psd files thinking something is wrong with my file, but get the same result. I have tried for days to figure this out. Can anyone help me?

Wow, thank you! That was fast. I googled that question to death and even bought (another) book on CS5 and never saw that answer. Thank you so much. You made a very good ending to my day! I'd buy you a beer if I could!!

How do I save an image (logo) transparent so that it will appear transparent on any color background such as a gradient or black?

How do I save an image (logo) transparent so that it will appear transparent on any color background such as a gradient or black?
I save image as "transparent" at File > New... but when I place on a gradient background it keeps appearing white. I'm trying to save transparent to be effective on any color such as a gradient or black. How do I truly save as transparent?

Put the logo on its own layer set the layer fill to 0 and add a layer style to the logo layer. Here I duped one change fill to 0 added style.

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

Colors shift when a PDF file contains transparent image

Hello,
I tried to programatically set a soft mask to an image by using the Addobe PDF Library, in order to make part of the image transparent. The image color space is RGB. I used PDEImageSetSMask() funtcion for setting the mask. I also have a PDF file that was created in the same way but without the part of the code that sets the mask. Therefore this PDF contains the same image as not transparent.
When I open two files in Adobe Reader 9.2.0 the colors are not the same. The colors in the file which contains the transparent image are a bit darker. The colors are different not only inside the image box, but in all page area. I also tried to open the same file in GSView and there was no such problem.
Can I fix this by changing the Adobe reader preferences, or this is a problem in the code that genereates the PDF?
If this is not the correct forum to ask this question, please direct me to the correct forum
Thanks

You need to set the transparency blending space of the page to RGB, since the default blending space is CMYK (hence the color shift). You do this by adding a transparency group dictionary to the page's dictionary when creating the PDF.

Transparency in CMYK color mode

Windows XP Pro, Photoshop CS3
It seems that one can only retain background transparency if image file is saved in PNG or GIF file format. It also seems that one cannot save to these file formats if graphic is in CMYK color mode - one must be in RBG mode to do so. How can I retain image with transparency in CMYK color?

I am starting with a TIF image in RBG color mode, a tree with grass in the background and foreground for example. I would like to eliminate the grass, make that background and foreground transparent with the background eraser tool so that only the tree remains and that when the tree is superimposed on a second image the background and foreground surrounding the tree will be that second image. In order to make the background and foreground of the tree transparent I have to save the file in GIF or PNG format since transparency doesn't seem work with TIF files however I cannot convert the GIF or PNG files from RBG to CMYK. CMYK doesn't seem work with those file types.
From: J Maloney [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 4:00 PM
To: Todd Beckerman
Subject: Transparency in CMYK color mode
PSD, PDF or TIF. Retain transparency for what?

How can I make a color box indicator transparent?

All, I would like to make a color box, which is part of a cluster in an array, transparent programmatically. Instead of appearing transparent, it shows up with a LARGE "T" inside the color box, with a white background. Because it is part of a cluster within an array, it will not work to use a property node... and because I would like to programmatically change the color, having it permanenty transparent (as proposed on another discussion topic) will also not work. Can someone please help me turn a color box transparent programmatically?
Thanks.
Anthony

The problem is that arrays of clusters cannot be passed into property nodes as falkpl has previously said. The attached jpeg shows how you would programmatically break the arrays into cluster, into elements, and then manipulate that color box to a transparent one. The T within the white color box indicates transparent though. If you were to attached that to a color attribute then you would see that object disappear (well I guess not since it's transparent )
Grant H.
National Instruments
LabVIEW Product Marketing Manager
Attachments:
color box.JPG ‏21 KB

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

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

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