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Rob Holtackers
Inspiring
August 11, 2024
Answered

Transparency to fade from picture to black background not shown correctly in exported PDF

  • August 11, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 1613 views

Hi all,

I am making a roll-up banner with a black background and a picture in it. The idea is to fade from the black background to the picture, and then back to black again. I overlaid the picture with a rectangle at both top edge and bottom edge of the picture. Both rectangles have a gradient that fades from 0% transparency (black) to 100% transparency (pure image). This looks great in Illustrator, but the exported PDF clearly shows 'hard' top and bottom edges of the picture. See screenshots of Illustrator and exported PDF attached. Does anyone know how to solve this issue?

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Correct answer Rob Holtackers

Hello @Rob Holtackers,

Thanks for sharing the details. Would you mind flattening the layers and then saving a copy as a PDF to check if it helps?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks,

Anubhav


I tried flattening, but this didn't do the job sadly. However, I looked at the older files in which I succeeded to do this, and found out that these were saved as PDF X-3 instead of X-4. Although X-4 is preferred now by the printshop, I managed to get the desired result by saving as PDF X-3 in which flattening could be performed during saving. For some reason, I can't get this to work in PDF X-4. The flattening option is disabled, and flattening myself before saving doesn't work apparently. Although the problem is solved now (I just uploaded the files as PDF X-3), I am still wondering what the difference is and why this occurs.

2 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 11, 2024

Is it a CMYK document? Are the images CMYK? Linked or embedded?

R
Rob HoltackersAuthor
Inspiring
August 12, 2024

Yes the document is CMYK, the picture was RGB but upon loading it asked me transform to CMYK. Linked or embedded I have no idea what you mean, I copy/pasted the picture into Illustrator.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 13, 2024

I just checked and indeed it looks like a mess. I messed around a bit with rasterizing and stuff, and I think there it went wrong perhaps. I just included the 'fresh' image and 2 new rectangles with a gradient from 100% black to 0% black (transparent), and exported again to PDF. Still, the PDF shows the 'hard' edges of the picture. In. addition, I have the idea that the colors of the picture also faded away (like saturation is dropping) instead of just all becoming darker. Link is the same, just updated the files.


Looks good over here when compared.

Do you have multiple monitors? Did you try to restart your machine?

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 11, 2024

And those are not the edges of the photo?

I can't see it in your screenshots, sorry.

 

R
Rob HoltackersAuthor
Inspiring
August 12, 2024

Sorry for not including a bit of more background on the top and bottom edge, but in one screenshot you clearly see a 'faded' transition from the picture to the black background (illustrator file), while in the resulting PDF you see a bit of fade but still a 'hard' transition from the end of the picture to the black background.

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