There is no such thing as PostScript Language Level 5!
There were only three PostScript language levels, the original PostScript (language level 1), PostScript Level 2 (language level 2), and PostScript 3 (language level 3). PostScript was never updated to include support for live transparency. There will not be any language levels beyond 3!
In terms of transparency, PostScript does not support transparency in any of its versions. PDF does support live transparency beginning with PDF 1.4.
If you are creating PDF via distillation of PostScript, any transparency in the original document must be flattened into opaque objects in order to generate PostScript for the distillation. The resultant PDF will obviously only consist of opaque objects (i.e., flattened or what we call “ruined” transparency.
- Dov