Text boxes not totally transparent. Please help.

[hippogriff]

Hello,

I just did a test print of a magazine I created in Indesign. I'm noticing in several places that the text frames aren't quite transparent. It's making a rectangle that I can see quite clearly over a colored background. This seems to happen only when the frame is over a photograph image(jpg or tiff). I checked the 'transparency' tab and it's at 100%. Also, the color is set to "none". I'm going "to-print" with the magazine very soon so any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[jimoblak]

This is probably the effect of 'stitching'.

Try searching this forum for previous discussion of this.

 

[hippogriff]

Ok, I did a search for stiching in the google box above for the tek-tips forum. Only the first 3 threads were related, and they didnt provide answers. However, I did find a clue. One of the instructor wrote this:

jimoblak (Instructor)
"If you look in the pages palette of InDesign, is the icon for the page you are on a solid white or is there a gray/white checkerboard?"

The question never got answered. However, I lookd at my file and the is a gray/white checkerboard. Do I want the checkerboard or the solid white. If white, than how do I change it from checkerboard to white?

Hopefully, that will solve my problem.
Thanks.

 

[jimoblak]

You can have either the gray/white checkerboard or plain white. Those icons simply indicate whether transparency effects appear on that page.

You are seeing the effects of transparency. You need to review the limitations/requirements of transparency in the InDesign manual and help files. First of all, you are bound to see the discoloration if you are not using a PostScript printer. You should also be using color management. Finally, make sure that transparency blending effects use objects of a similar color model... ie: do not try using a semi transparent CMYK image over a PANTONE spot.

 

[hippogriff]

I just checked the 'help' files and didnt see anything that might help me fix my problem. I thought that perhaps in the "display performance" section I might find something but that doesnt effect exporting or printing.

Again, this is happening with an uncolored text box. Of the hundereds on text boxes I have in the document the problem only occurs in about 8 objects. And it appears that all but one of those objects have drop shadow. It's weird because there are literally 100's of other objects of the same type that this problem doesnt occur.

...Ok, I just got back from the local printer and I think I solved the problem. I did 4 test prints. When I printed the indesign file it worked great. Then I printed a High Quality pdf, a x1a pdf, and a press quality pdf. The only one that turned out bad was the "High Quality" which is the setting that I have always used because I thought it was the best. Does anyone know why "high quality" has this problem?

Thanks for your help.

 

[jmgalvin]

In "high quality" transparency flattening is set to "medium" quality unless you change it.

In "press", the quality that should always be used for commercial print, transparency flattenig is set to "high". the X1A export from ID mimics the press setting so it's fine for printing.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4