image in indesign file not showing in pdf export - help!

[Guest]

Hi there -

Exporting my indesign file to a pdf has been fine up til now - all the images and text are showing up fine except for one. The image is one that I edited in Photoshop (CS4) - it's a drop shadow layer. I then placed it in Indesign and fiddled with its opacity. And then I exported. Literally, everything else in this rather substantial file is fine. I increased the opacity of the image to 100% and it did actually show up in the pdf, as it appeared on indesign. Then I tried decreasing the opacity by a minimal amount (to 85% - I'm aiming for around 45%) and it disappeared again. Not sure how to fix this. Thanks for any help

(in Indesign)    (in the pdf)

[Jongware]

What viewer are you using to view the PDF with?

[Guest]

Preview.

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

Preview is a substandard way of viewing PDF files. I doesn't support all the PDF features. You need to use the free Adobe Reader. You can download it from the Adobe website.

[BobLevine]

Just so you know that Steve isn’t blowing smoke, this is a well known problem with Preview. It works just fine for PDFs out of Word and the like but is simply not up to the task of handling advanced features.

Bob

[palmer52]

There's another reason an object may not show up in a PDF, but is seen in the InDesign document. If that object is set to "Overprint" and the object is white or a light color over a dark background, then the object will not show in a PDF.

[andreh43732774]

Try using the white arrow tool to select the image within the image box. Then go to "color" and make sure it is set to black (not white).

I had a similar issue and found this worked for me.