Apogee Series 3 and Pdf 1.4 transparencies

[hornbeam]

Does anybody know of a work around for Pdf 1.4 transparencies generated in Indesign or Illustrator 10, (you know the bloody drop shadows on a tinted spot colour). Then taken as a pdf into pagestore.

Any help appreciated.

[pcmodem]

If you have Acrobat 7 there is a Flattener you can use to Flatten the transparencies.

In older versions of acrobat you can print to a postscript and then redisill the postscript. NOTE: The process of making a postscript flattens the file because postscript does not understand transparency.

[hornbeam]

Would doing it this way guarantee that you will get what is showing on screen, or will the flattening produce a white box around the drop shadow area.

[RobR]

I didn't think PDF 1.4 could handle transparency at all...

[jason]

There are no guarantees, just flatten the file with Acrobat 7, then use the Overprint Preview, the drop shadows should preview correctly.

When you move the PDF to your Apogee workstation and open it in Acrobat 4 you will see white boxes because Acrobat 4 does not support the Overprint preview. However it should work correctly.

Better yet, if you have the native file, just EXPORT (don't print to the Normalizer) a PDF with transparencies flattened from ID CS or Ill CS and drop the PDF in Page Store. As I said before it will only preview correctly in Acrobat 7, but when you RIP it the flattened transparencies should render correctly.

I also have Apogee Series 3 and that is what I encounter.

jason

Originally Posted by RobR

I didn't think PDF 1.4 could handle transparency at all...

That is correct, PDF 1.4 does NOT support transparency. PDF 1.5 & up does.

[jason]

Let clear up this confusion. It has been my understanding that PDF version 1.4 created with Acrobat 5.0 DOES support transparency.

I am attaching a link to one of the many websites that list the new features that PDF 1.4 included and they all mention transparency support.

http://www.citationsoftware.com/news...0_announce.htm

Help me here.

jason

[David]

Originally Posted by prepress_vee

That is correct, PDF 1.4 does NOT support transparency. PDF 1.5 & up does.

Uhhh, I believe that 1.3 does not support transparency, 1.4, 1.5 & 1.6 do.

V 1.4 is from Acrobat 5 which supports transparency, although it's transparency flattener is not as good as 1.5 (from Acrobat 6).

David

WOW - this could be a long thread.:lol:
Are we reffering to 'live' transparency or 'flattened' transparency?
I thought PDF 1.4 could handle 'flattened' transparency but not 'live' transparency.?.? So, if that is true (and it may not be) 1.4 doesn't really SUPPORT transparency.
And PDF 1.5 can do both.
The difference being that the PDF is generated from printing .ps(flattened) vs/ exporting out 'live' transparency.
Please help me if I am mis-understanding something. :roll:

vee

[edgar]

PDF 1.4 made with Acrobat 5 supports transparencies. The rips must support PDF 1.4 to process transparencies, but take care, some rips process PDF 1.4 in native mode and other rips first convert that PDF to PS then start to rip, this could cause bad flattening.