Placing PNG in Illustrator doesn't have transparent background

[kasey_9884]

Does anyone know why my PNGs are showing up on Illustrator like this?  It shows a white background when it's on an artboard and a gray background when it's off the artboard. No problems when I open the PDF in Acrobat. The transparency is there on PDFs, but it's bugging me because I can't see the background.

[Kurt Gold]

Can you share this .png file?

Also, which version of Illustrator are you using? What operating system?

[kasey_9884]

Illustrator version 29.1 and Windows 11

[Kurt Gold]

Placing your sample file over a coloured background looks alright.

If that doesn't work for you, you may share the entire Illustrator file including the embedded .png file, so one can have a look.

[kasey_9884]

Sharing file I'm working with. This is what I see on my end. Not sure what's happening because the rest of my team doesn't have this problem.

[renél80416020]

Bonjour,

Affichage > afficher le damier de transparence

<MAJ><CTRL>D

Ou placez un objet en arrière plan...

[Monika Gause]

Is that in a group?

Then some knockout group stuff could be happening.

But also try and View > Preview on CPU.

[kasey_9884]

Not in a group. Previewing on CPU helps with the transparency and PNG viewing but would prefer previewing on GPU for overall smoother workflow. Not working with anything super heavy 🙂

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

Looks fine over here. I suspect your graphic card, since CPU preview seems to work for you.

[Monika Gause]

If your graphic card does not support it, then you can look for driver updates and stuff, but basically that's it.

Perhaps just ignore it while working and check from time to time if it's still alright?

[Ton Frederiks]

PNGs are RGB files, bringing them into a CMYK Illustrator document will convert them to CMYK.

This should work (and it does on my and other machines), but it is worth trying if Photoshop RGB files give the same result on your machine.