Placed RGB images in InDesign 2025 are flashing or blinking.

[mvheim]

To be precise, they look like they are cycling from "RGB Color Preview" to "CMYK Color Preview", about once per second, as if to indicate that some colors will fall outside the print gamut. But I cannot find any documentation of this "feature"? It is enormously distracting — in fact, it would problaby cause problems for epilepsy patients.

Holding down the cursor over the image makes it pause. But as soon as the cursor moves off the page, it starts flashing again.

InDesign 20.3.1

Mac Studio M2

MacOS Sequoia 15.5

[mvheim]

Ah, I think I may have it. I had a text frame overlapping the image frame. When editing text in the frame, the cursor blinks — I noticed that the image was apparently blinking in sync with the cursor. Now, why it should do that is still a mystery, but that seems to explain what triggered the phenomenon. When the text frame is deselected, the blinking stops. I am still inclined to call this a "bug".

[Eugene Tyson]

What's your transparency blend space set to - go to Edit>Transparency Blend Space

[mvheim]

It is set at Document RGB. But setting it to Document CMYK made no difference. So long as the text insertion cursor is blinking anywhere on the page (not just in the text box overlapping the image, as I stated before), the image intensity flashes to the same rhythm.

[mvheim]

Perhaps "pulses" is a better description than "flashes".

[Anubhav M]

Hello @mvheim,

This does seem strange. Could you share a small screen recording of your exact workflow to replicate this problem, along with a link to a sample file (if possible) after uploading it to a file-sharing service, so I can check this with the team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

[mvheim]

Here is a screen recoding. You can see the images flash in time to the cursor blinking.

There is no animation whatsoever in this document. It is a simple newsletter layout.

[mvheim]

I edited the document down to a single page, for convenience. It still exhibits the behavior. Link here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/9xs7oa6r6vnvgbgtjhih1/ADQoaBwu7luPhAjYOXedkw4?rlkey=2w8sxvyfcmtd9hr8e...

[Eugene Tyson]

It's not pulsing for me so I'm going to jot down all the steps I'd go through (even though you've already tried some - I'm just going to consolidate ideas here)

This feels very much like a redraw or compositing bug. Essentially, InDesign is re-rendering the images every time it refreshes the text caret. That would explain why it stops if you deselect the text frame: no caret blinking, no refresh cycle.

GPU Performance / Display Settings

Go to Preferences > GPU Performance.

Try disabling GPU Performance and restart InDesign.

On some Macs, the GPU redraw has been glitchy when transparency, high-res RGB images, and blinking insertion points mix.

Screen Mode

Try switching to Preview Mode (W).

Sometimes the normal mode forces more redraw cycles.

Or switch between Typical Display and High-Quality Display in View > Display Performance.

Transparency Blend Space (you did this)

You confirmed changing RGB/CMYK doesn’t help. Worth trying again with GPU off.

Flattening Preview

Choose Window > Output > Flattener Preview.

Toggle some transparency options to see if it forces a stable redraw.

Rebuild Preferences

Hold Shift+Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or Shift+Control+Option+Command (Mac) when launching InDesign to reset prefs.

This can flush out old corrupted settings.

Update InDesign

Double-check if you are truly on the latest patch, or if Adobe has quietly sneaked out a fix since your post.

Go to Creative Cloud > Updates.

 Try Another Mac User Profile

Create a new macOS user account and see if it happens there.

Sometimes it’s a system-level cache or user-specific setting.

External Display

If you use an external display, unplug it and see if it happens on the built-in screen alone.

External displays can trigger weird GPU compositing issues.

One other option - if you toggle the preferences

[mvheim · Accepted solution]

Thank you for this thorough list of suggestions, but... apparently the entire problem has mysteriously resolved itself. After I booted my Mac this morning, I reopened the sample file to start troubleshooting according to your list, but it wasn't blinking. So then I opened the original file — same thing. It had been doing this for at least two sessions over two days, but now it seems to have stopped. The only thing I had actually changed was Transparency Blend Space — is it possible this only takes effect after a Quit and Restart?

[Eugene Tyson]

Ah the good old 'did you try turn off and on again' ... should be the first step of any troubleshooting 🙂

If it starts happening again, or you face any other strange oddities hopefully the list helps you troubleshoot things in the future.