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• • November 29, 2010 at 5:46 am #57931
    matti55

    Member

    Hi all – this problem has been driving me to distraction for about 4 days now… I can't figure what the problem could be, and I've been scouring forums and the help centre to no avail.

    I have a placed bitmap .psd which has a gradient overlay fading it to transparent. When I export to pdf, the fade out simply doesnt export! The bitmap is just sat there at 100% opacity. I can export to jpeg just fine, but all the common pdf export presets have the same (lack of) effect.All the other transparency or effects (opacity changes / drop shadows etc) work fine.

    Equally bizarre, if I use PDF/x-1a:2001 or PDF x-3:2002, the gradient feather works, but the text goes crazy – outlining misrendering and some text boxes disappearing. Totally bizarre!

    I'm going to have to figure a workaround for this, but I'm sure its something thats going to come up again, so gettinb to the bottom of it is my long term goal.

    Thanks in anticipation everyone!

    MATT

  • November 30, 2010 at 6:53 am #57957
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    In general, you should try to put text ABOVE transparent objects if you're going to be exporting to pdf/x-1a or x-3, because both of those are based on Acrobat 4, which means it has to get “flattened.” Text under transparency will be converted to outlines, and sometimes not as well as you'd hope. Do a search for “transparency flattening” and you'll learn loads.

    If you use Acrobat 5 or later, the transparency will be maintained. But it sounds as though you're not seeing them in the final PDF. Are you viewing them in Acrobat or some other PDF viewer? Are you using any spot colors? If so, you'll probably need to turn on Simulate Overprint in Acrobat in order to see them on screen.

  • November 30, 2010 at 7:12 am #57959
    matti55

    Member

    Hiya David – many thanks for your reply (I'm imagining you speaking it as I am very familiar with your voice from the podcasts!)

    I'm using Preview. It sounds from your reply like the effect might have worked but I'm just getting some viewing anomaly so I'm going to get Acrobat (heathen talk I know, but I've never found use for it 'til now) and see how that goes.

    Again, thanks for the reply! keep up the amazing work.

  • November 30, 2010 at 7:19 am #57960
    matti55

    Member

    As your geniusness suggested, there is no problem in Acrobat. Just Preview. Well, I am once again indebted to IDS. Thanks David.

  • November 30, 2010 at 7:23 am #57961
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Glad we could be of help!

    Yeah, I have had so many problems with Preview. It's good, but not great. Acrobat is definitely the way to go. (It's like the old days with “PostScript clones” from various companies. Things just sometimes didn't print properly. Better to use the “real Adobe” technology if you want to ensure it comes out right.)

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