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Kay h plus p
Kay h plus p
Participating Frequently
October 17, 2017
Question

drop shadow with low resolution

  • October 17, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 2062 views

If you create a Drop Shadow between 19 - 55 mm in size and export the page as PDF-X3 with 300 dpi, the full resolution is not rendered (check with Acrobat Pro DC - Preflight with image resolution check). Under 19 mm and over 55 mm everything is OK. Tested on Windows 7 + 10 (InDesign CC + CS6) and Mac (InDesign CC)

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1 reply

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 17, 2017

I see the same—I get 256ppi for larger shadows. i'm guessing it's because there's nothing to resolve so anything higher is wasted pixels. You could also move to PDF/X-4 where the transparency (shadows) is kept live and resolution isn't an issue.

Kay h plus p
Kay h plus pAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 18, 2017

Thanks for your input.

Unfortunately with a drop shadow of 50 mm the output resolution is only 105 ppi, which is not as tolerable as the 256 ppi you describe. Starting from 18 mm the output resolution gets progressively worse until it hits 55 mm where the preflight says it's all fine again. It's really bizarre.

With a PDF/X-4 the issue does not occure but most printing services still need a PDF/X-3, so this is not yet a valid option.

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2017

With a PDF/X-4 the issue does not occur

I'm not sure about that, a similar issue came up today here.

Transparency without Flattening

Even with PDF/X-4 shadows are exported as (transparent) bitmap objects and there's a curious interaction with the grayed out transparency preset relative to the bitmap's resolution

So I can get resolution flags with certain Acrobat preflight presets even when there are no placed images on the page and the export is to the default PDF/X-4 preset. It's a similar situation where the larger the shadow spread the lower the resolution.

So this 20mm shadow passes the 250-450 ppi preflight profile

But if I increase the shadow size to 22mm the shadow gets flagged at 240ppi

It gets progressively worse with larger spreads. Here's 100mm with the shadow at 52ppi

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