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A
auctioneer
Participant
May 19, 2010
Question

Transparent Background in 'tiff'

  • May 19, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 107875 views

Hi

I'm having a heck of a time trying to get an image 'tiff' to save with a transparent background.  The original image was sent to me as a .pdf, I opened the .pdf and saved as a tiff.  I then using the pen tool traced around the object, selected inverse and deleted the background.  Everything thus far worked to plan, except when I import the 'tiff' image into 'InDesign' it has a white background.  I then reloaded the image and saved in 'PNG-8", same results.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks..

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    2 replies

    L
    lrahrig
    Participant
    June 20, 2011

    This was helpful for me too. I couldn't figure out if I was missing something really easy. I just placed the PSD file and it worked great. Thanks!

    Niles Ridgeman
    Niles Ridgeman
    Participating Frequently
    May 20, 2010

    There’s no transparency support in tiffs (well sort of - multi layer tiff… but let’s ignore that for now).

    If you just need it to import into indesign, just save it as a PSD file — but beware, you can make very large PSDs that can slow down indesign, you may want to save a separate flattened (except the transparency) version if you get into complex photoshop documents.

    PNG also offers transparency and can be useful for other things, primarily RGB applications (like transparent things in Powerpoint, Keynote or on the web).

    Good luck!

    A
    auctioneerAuthor
    Participant
    May 20, 2010

    Thanks..I thought I was losing it ;-))  I saved the image in every imaginable format and nothing I did worked.  As soon as I took the image from PS and imported to InDesign I lost the transparent background.  I've been here for over an hour and finally figured it out.  The import dialogue box in InDesign has some options for importing images such as this, made a few selections and I'm back in business.  I really should have posted this in the InDesign forum ;-))

    Thanks again!

      A
      allisonl33809070
      Participant
      June 26, 2018

      Auctioneer, what were the options in the import dialogue box for importing images in InDesign that you used? What was it that you figured out? thanks!

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