Placed image with drop shadow creating ghosting of spot color

[Roggengrind]

Placed an image in a InDesign CS3 document with a drop shadow (transparency) applied. This is a 4c +1 spot project. Where the image overlaps the spot color it creates a screen back (tint) of the spot color. Have saved the placed files and .EPS, .PDF, .PSD and nothing seems to eliminate the issue. The only way I have found to eliminate the problem is to convert the spot color to CMYK. However, this piece needs the spot color.

 

[eugenetyson]

you say you placed an Image in a CS3 doc, with a a drop shadow... was the shadow applied on the image or was it applied in InDesign?

What are your settings for your drop shadow? What colour is your drop shadow? What is the spot colour it's producing this effect?

What format is the image? How was it created? Does the image have any transparency (in InDesign or other application)?

You could try to change the blend mode of the drop shadow and switch on Preview to see if it's making a difference.

 

[Roggengrind]

1)The transparency was applied in InDesign.

2) [Black] (InDesign default black) Multiply 40% Object Knocks out shadow.
PMS 7545 C

3) Placed images are .EPS files right now. The image does not have transparency other then the drop shadow applied in InDesign

4) Will try switching the color and the blending mode and see if it produces other results.

 

[apepp]

...verify your export or print settings, check that the ink manager in your output dialog is set to preserve spots...

...if distilling postscript verify your color settings in distiller...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...there is also an update to cs3 here:

Mac:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3749

Windows:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3746

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...are we talking about an on screen pdf appearance or a printed appearance?

...if a printed appearance it is likely the output device or rip being used...

Andrew

 

[eugenetyson]

Ok, so you have PMS 7545

Which the CMYK breakdown is

C-23
M-2
Y-0
K-63

You applied a drop shadow of 40% black, and it's set to multiply. This multiplies the base colour by the blend colour. In this case the base colour is, in theory, mostly C and more mostly black at 63%. This then feathers, as the drop shadow is set to 0, if you set it to 100 you will see a gray bar. If you multiply any colour with black it produces black, and conversely if you multiply any colour with white the colour remains unchanged.

What's happening here is exactly what you asked for. It's multiplying a gradient of 40% to 0 x 63%.

You can try to darken your Drop Shadow Colour by creating a Rich Black of 30 30 30 100, and applying that.

But you're basically applying a drop shadow with almost the same values as the background, hence why it looks the same.

You will need to adjust your Transparency Flattners... check out this page

http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/InD...Sa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-6ead.html

Something I read a while back on the subject its taken from the Adobe Live Docs Page:


Specify a color space for blending transparent objects

To blend the colors of transparent objects on a spread, InDesign converts the colors of all objects to a common color space using either the CMYK or RGB color profile for the document. This blending space enables objects of multiple color spaces to blend when interacting transparently. To avoid color mismatches between different areas of the objects on-screen and in print, the blending space is applied for screen and in the flattener.

The blending space is applied only to those spreads that contain transparency.
Choose Edit > Transparency Blend Space, and then choose one of the document’s color spaces.
Note: For a typical print workflow, choose the Document CMYK color space.

 

[apepp]

...also ensure you don't have 'simulate overprint' on in your output settings...

Andrew

 

[eugenetyson]

Yes there is quite a few things you have to check, all great suggestions so far.

If you still can't get it to work, consider making the drop shadow and the background colour in the original image application, even with a spot colour colour background it should work. If you bring in the file and you get two versions of the same spot colour, be sure to map one to the other in the Ink Manager.

 

[Roggengrind]

To clarify. The drop shadow isn't causing the issue. It is the transparency that is creating a ghosted image behind the bounding box that the image is placed into. Hope that helps describe the situation.

 

[eugenetyson]

Take a screen shot. Resize it to 640x480, I would like to see this. You can upload the image to

http://www.imageshack.us

and if you use the last link they provide to insert into img tags here.

You can view how to use the tags on the forum if you Preview Post first.

I think I know what you're problem is, but until I get back to the computer with indesign on it you will have to wait to see if I'm right.

Or if you want to package your document and compress it, you can

http://www.yousendit.com

and I will, and possibly others will be happy to look at it. You can take out all data other than the image and the spot colur you're using. And all irrelevant pages. I would be happy to look at it.

One thing though, when you package it will you open the packaged InDesign file and File>Export to INX before you send it. My CS3 is broken at the moment.

Thanks.

 

[Roggengrind]

Note I had to mimic the printed color proof. The screen shot will show you what we are dealing with.

Let me know if you can see this image.

Unfortunately I can't share the file in totallity due to client confidentiallity.

 

[eugenetyson]

Is it the huge rectangular square? Or is it just around the edges of the drop shadow?

Are you going to export to a pdf? Need to know this.

You should try to export to PDF later than ADOBE 4 as highlighted here

This is what an export to PDF with ADOBE 5 looks like for me

The Adobe 4 creates a screen similar to yours.

 

[Roggengrind]

We are exporting to PDF and have up'ed it to Acrobat 7.0. This problem only happens over a spot color and on the color proof. The PDF on screen looks fine. The light gray box represents what we get when we proof it through our large format Epsons. When I convert the spot to a CMYK build it prints just fine but we need the 5th color as it is brand standard.

 

[eugenetyson]

Sounds like you have a problem with your Epson, you should update your drivers and consult your manual, it maybe that the Epson driver can't handle the 5th colour this way.

You could try:

In Acrobat

Tools>Print Production>Flattner Preview

Move the slider to the left until you get about 15

Turn off everything except Preserve Overprint.

And Apply.

See if that helps.

If it doesn't there is nothing else I can suggest. There seems to be an issue with the Epson Printer and not InDesign, Acrobat or anything else. Does your Epson support PostScript?

If you can't solve this issue I recommend you visit

http://www.indesignsecrets.com

and use the Contact Us. They are really helpful and I wish you luck.

 

[apepp]

...the structure of your file is fine for high end output, when spots colors interact with transparency it is essentially overprint information, if exporting to pdf 1.3 (acrobat 4) then flattening is required, where spot colors are involved you will likely see a white box in acrobat unless you view the 1.3 pdf with overprint preview enabled...

...pdf 1.4 or higher retains transparency meaning the rip being used needs to support flattening, if not, you end up with unexpected results...

...if the rip doesn't honour the overprint information you end up with the symptoms you are having, whereby it will convert to process the area where transparency is used, taking the pantone cmyk values from the rips pantone library for that area. With which might well be different to that of what indesign uses as it's values for a given pantone color. This renders the final print either darker or lighter than the surrounding pantone color used in indesign...

...pantones can be tricky to simulate on a digital proofer and when dealing with transparency and spots the rip needs to not 'discard overprint' information, which can be changed on the rip. It looks to me as though your rip, if you have one, is not handling transparency very well and rendering the pantone area, with the drop shadow, in it's own cmyk version of the pantone color you are using. I would verify the workflow set up is honouring overprint information in the flattening process...

...if you are not printing through a rip then you will need to have 'simulate overprint' turned on as the workaround when exporting or printing from indesign. This does change it to cmyk, but remember that your digital proofer is simulating a spot colour into a cmyk color space anyway. So if you end up with a proof that looks nothing close to the pantone then you need to adjust the cmyk values of that spot colour to get nearer the target pantone...

...using the 'simulate overprint' option is for proofing purposes and not for sending to a print provider...

...until someone looks into the rips transparent workflow it will likely be your only option to get a proof that the client can happily take a look at...

Andrew

 

[eugenetyson]

The other option of course is to open your image, apply the spot colour to the background, apply the drop shadow to your leaflets and save it as a layered PSD, place it in InDesign and you probably won't get any of those errors. But Andrew is right. Transparency confuses the heck out of me.