Transparent images for indesign

Question

I am very familiar with indesign and importing transparent images for print. I need to build a document in indesign that will be viewed only on web or mobile. I must use indesign. The document will be very image heavy. It seems that indesign does not see the transparency of a png8 but it might be excepting png24 with transparent background. Will it always except the png24 transparency. I know I can use .psd or .tiff but the final file size of this document is crucial.

Open to any advice.

I am on the latest version of CC and working on a Mac.

Barb Binder · Accepted Answer

It seems that indesign does not see the transparency of a png8 but it might be excepting png24 with transparent background.

PNG-8 does not support transparency. Like GIF, it's 8-bit and that means it is limited to 256 colors.

PNG-24 does support transparency. Like JPEG, it is 24-bit and supports 16.7 million colors. In addition to supporting background transparency and background matting, the PNG‑24 format supports multilevel transparency. You can have up to 256 degrees of transparency from opaque to completely transparent, so you can blend the edges of an image smoothly with any background color. Not all browsers support multilevel transparency, however.

Willi Adelberger · Answer

I would recommend using PDF/X-4, AI, PSD and TIFF files with transparency. PNG 8 does not support any transparency, PNG does only support reduced opacity, but not other blending modes as PDF or AI does.

If you have vectors with text use PDF/X-4 and AI, not any flattened PDF like PDF/X-3 or older and no PDF which was created via print, use only exported PDFs.

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