Shaded text frames shows low resolution as 150 DPI after export to pdf

Eshu153 said:

Pdf x4 is not the desired option for me. I need pdf/x-1a for export to comply with Ingramspark guidelines. Does this work with pdf/x-1a too?

Just test it. Should work as well for an PDF/X-1a export situation. Do a custom transparency flattener preset, do a custom PDF/X-1a export preset with that custom flattener preset and check the result with Acrobat Pro's Preflight.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Also, if the shadow Size setting is high, and there isn’t much change in start and end values, the unnecessarily high resolution will be lowered. Here even using Uwe’s high res flattener preset the shadow res is 208ppi—this is a feature not a bug.

Hi Willi,

technically or visually there will be no issue with 150 ppi of this drop shadow.

But: A automatic preflight system will flag this.

One can resolve the issue with a custom transparency flattening preset.

Working with "High Resolution" will not help.

Something like the below flattener preset will do. From my German InDesign 2020:

Concentrate on the resolution for Gradient and Mesh. Try a value of 600 ppi or even more and check the results. This flattener preset can also be applied to an exported PDF/X-4 if you want that an auto preflight will not flag a drop shadow done in InDesign.

So I used my custom flattener preset from above for a custom PDF/X-4 export preset that exports a text frame with a drop shadow. As you can see in the screenshot below the option for transparency flattening is grayed out. But that does not mean the applied resolution is not applied!

One can build this custom PDF/X-4 export preset by starting with the deafult PDF/X-4 preset, change compatibility temporarily to Acrobat 4, apply the flattener preset, then switch back to Acrobat 7 and PDF/X-4. That's all.

The result is a drop shadow with 1200 ppi resolution.

From Acrobat's Preflight:

The preflight flags the resolution because its too high after running the single test:

List color and grayscale images not within 250 to 450 ppi

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Drop shadow has always a lower resolution than the image export settings, as it does not cause a problem in printing. Don't forget to add noise to the drop shadow effect.

Hi,

What are your PDF export settings? Can you post screen captures of the general tab settings and the Advanced tab setttings?

Export your PDF at a higher resolution.

but. Enter yet, please take a screen shot with frames edges turned on. What you explain doesn't make sense. If the graph boxes were made using paragraph shading, did you have the headline text in it's own text frame to accomplish the drop shadow? Because drop shadows can only be applied to objects, not to just text.