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Transparent image impacting shade of background color when printed

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
September 10, 2020
7 replies
7124 views

I have a green background box and have placed a pair of photos with the background removed, which are mean to allow the green background to be visible and uniform across the entire file. The images and background appear accurate and uniform in indesign but when I export as a pdf and print, there is a slight, but noticable tint difference between the image boundary boxes and the background, producing a slightly darker box around each image. Any ideas if this is a print, export, pdf or indesign issue?

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Correct answer rob day

Changing file formats wouldn’t have any affect on how the print driver handles flattening—Adobe has no control over how your printer software handles color management or transparency flattening.

Try printing a flattened PDF—PDF/X-4 does not flatten transparency.

V

Vanessa5FBD

Participant

What Rob suggested below solved my problem and pdf printed perfectly! Thanks Rob.

rob day

Community Expert

It can be a common problem with composite printers and transparency flattening—print drivers don’t always correctly color manage and flatten transparency. The solution that usually works for composite printing is to export a flattened RGB PDF and print that as an image in Acrobat:

Set the Output to convert to Document RGB with the Compatibility set to Acrobat 4

Click Advanced and check Print As Image

A

Angie M. Bechaz

Participating Frequently

Thank you, this worked a treat!

vladan saveljic

Inspiring

where do you print? on your digital printer? perhaps your digital printer may be out of date

Randy Hagan

Community Expert

Hard to say without seeing what you're trying to do, but InDesign might not be the right place to fix it. It's not unusual to have a little color contamination to come into play when you start compositing color over color — especially when you are layering it in a program like InDesign which doesn't have the tools to correct for it.

If you have the tools and the expertise, I'd suggest that you may want to build your elements in Photoshop, then place the resulting element into InDesign. You can read more about color contamination — and how to account for it in Photoshop — through the link below:

Decontaminating color in Photoshop

Hope this helps,

Randy

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Chris5CE3Author

Participating Frequently

It is a pretty simple design with a green box in the background. I have two images that I "cutout" in photoshop, removing the background. I have placed both images in front of the green background.

The pdf that I exported looks fine. However when I print it, the green "behind" the cutout images is darker than the rest of the green box. So when printed, it produces a slighlty darker green "box" around the images, corresponding with the image frame.

I opened the pdf in photoshop and printed it as jpeg and it removed the issue. I also exported it as a jpeg instead of a pdf and it printed correctly. I even opened the exported jpg in photoshop, safed it out of photoshop as a pdf and then opened that pdf in acrobat and printed it from there with no problems. So I'm guessing it isn't a design issue as much as a pdf issue or user error on my part in how I am exporting it from indesign as a pdf? I tried exporting it in a variety of different pdf settings and most of the predefined options and they all had the same issues/

Randy Hagan

Community Expert

That's because when you opened it in Photoshop, you were essentially simplifying/flattening it as you output it from JPEG. That mitigates the color contamination thing you were seeing when compositing within InDesign and outputting to PDF. You could've been seeing an exclusively display issue, or getting an accurate indicator of possible output issues. But by working in Photoshop, as I offered, you worked your way around the issue.

Glad it worked out for you,

Randy

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Chris5CE3Author

Participating Frequently

I exported it as a jpeg and it printed fine. Any ideas on what might be causing the issue in the pdf format?

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Chris5CE3Author

Participating Frequently

It appears to be something in how I am exporting it as a pdf? I tried trouble shooting and got it to pint correctly by opening the pdf in photoshop and printing it as a .jpeg.

vladan saveljic

Inspiring

did you try to export to PDF/X-4:2008?

C

Chris5CE3Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the suggestion. I tied it, but still have the same issue.

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