exporting eps from indesign

[inquisitive also]

I am using 3 psd images with no background on a page in indesign and exporting the file as an eps. I expect the file to have a transparent background but there is a white square behind the image. How can I get an eps with no background when exporting from Indesign? Thanks

[Steve Werner]

EPS is a very old format. It has no support for transparency. What are you trying to do?

[inquisitive also]

something which is very easy in photoshop which is to get a file with NO background totaly transparent. But the printer is asking for an eps.

[Steve Werner]

I'd strongly recommend looking for another printer. Your printer is stuck in a very old technology, and appears to be out of touch with current printing processes. If transparency is important to you, you won't get it from that workflow.

[Willi Adelberger]

EPS does never support transparency. The printer should use PDF/X-4 if you need transparency.

Don't use EPS in modern age.

[rob day]

something which is very easy in photoshop which is to get a file with NO background totaly transparent.

But not if you save the PS file as an EPS—Photoshop EPS doesn't allow layers or transparency:

[Colin Flashman]

Perhaps have another conversation with your printer about the file formats that can be accepted. It may be a simple breakdown of communication from the printer's end (e.g. a sales representative is rattling off an old line that they need an EPS; the instruction may be an out-of-date instruction on the printer's website, or a staffer is misinformed).

It's important to also make a distinction between 1 bit transparency and 8 bit transparency. It is my understanding that EPS supports 1 bit transparency such as work paths, otherwise clipped EPS images would not be possible. However, it does NOT support 8 bit transparency that are used in effects such as drop shadows.

So far as changing printers, that's not always an option for a variety of reasons that may be out of the control of the designer and in the hands of the higher-ups or proprietor. It is worth having a conversation with the printer to discuss their purpose for requesting EPS files.

Back to the OP's initial question - how does one accomplish this in InDesign? Unfortunately it isn't possible to preserve - within an EPS file format - an 8-bit transparency whether using InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop. Another format would be required.

[Test Screen Name]

EPS does not support translucency but it can have transparent areas where there is nothing. Whatever is under the EPS shows through. However EPS previews probably don't support them.

To test the EPS place it back into InDedign and print to s PostScript printer.

[rob day]

EPS does not support translucency but it can have transparent areas where there is nothing.

Maybe to clarify–vector objects in an exported EPS wouldn't have an opaque bounding box, but bitmaps with transparency placed on the page would lose their transparency and get a opaque bounding box. Like below where the blue circle is a PSD bitmap with a transparent background, and the red square is a native InDesign rectangle (vector):

Exported as EPS and placed back into ID on a gray background:

The same page exported as PDF/X-4 and placed back into ID

[Test Screen Name]

Well...raster in EPS can have transparency, since the 1980s. But it has to be made with a clipping path.

[rob day]

Right but the clipping path is a vector—there can't be transparent pixels.

[Test Screen Name]

Actually since Postscript language level 3 there can be transparent pixels too via an associated bitmap mask. From the 1990s sometime. But very definitely on/off. In level 2 the adventurous could paint an image as a pattern through an imagemask. I guess that is entirely raster, but it's arguable.

[rob day]

Maybe you could show that working—it's not for me. When I export from ID I'm forced to choose a Flattener preset, so even a PSD using an alpha channel gets flattened on the export:

[Test Screen Name]

I didn't say it was possible in InDesign, just in EPS. I'm sure it was once but the feature might have been pushed out by "modern" transparency. The pattern thing, no, though. Some developers tried it but it tended to blow the memory of the printers of the day.