PDF export displaying ellipse/shape boundaries

[mwenz]

PDFX isn't an option for some types of work. I could care less what a printer requests.

This card design is an example. I have attached two screen shots of a close up of an issue where converting the PDF inside of Acrobat blows up the design elements.

PDF 1.5 is the screen shot named: pdf_1-5.png
PDFX-1a is the screen shot of the converted 1.5 version and is named: pdf_x1a.png

See the ghosting of the rays that ought to be behind the sun?

In any case, this is from a post I did on another board concerning transparency, vector elements and flattening.

Take care, Mike
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From Adobe:

Types of transparency

Transparency in Adobe publishing applications is referred to as either live or flattened. As a general rule, files that contain live transparency are more desirable due to their device independence and the ease with which they can be edited.

Live transparency

The transparency attributes of objects created in Adobe publishing applications stay live and fully editable while in their native applications. While not editable, transparency will remain live in non-native applications that support the native file format (such as PDF 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6). Transparency attributes are considered live because they can interact with objects that are placed beneath them, allowing those objects to show through the transparency. The use of live transparency in a file gives it a very high degree of device independence because the transparent elements are maintained as vector art rather than raster images with a fixed resolution.

The following file formats can contain live transparency:

• .AI: Adobe Illustrator 9, 10, CS, and CS2
• .INDD: Adobe InDesign 2, CS, and CS2
• .PSD: Adobe Photoshop 6, 7, CS, and CS2
• .PDF: Adobe PDF 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 (Acrobat 5, 6, and 7)
• .TIFF: Version 6 (TIFF files saved from Photoshop 6 or later)

Flattened transparency

Transparency is flattened when a file containing live transparency is converted into a format that doesn’t support live transparency or the file is printed. Conversion is the job of the Flattener. During the flattening process, the Flattener replaces transparent objects with objects that are visually equivalent to the transparent originals, but contain no transparency. These new opaque objects are often referred to as flattened transparency. Flattened transparency does not contain any live transparent elements and, therefore, cannot be manipulated. If you think it may be necessary to make changes to the artwork after the flattening process has taken place, make sure to save a copy of the unflattened artwork for future editing.

The following common file types do not support live transparency (the Flattener must flatten transparent objects prior to printing or exporting): PostScript, EPS, DCS, PDF 1.3 and earlier, PDF/X, GIF, JPEG, BMP, and versions of TIFF that do not conform to the TIFF 6.0 specification (for example, TIFF files created with a version of Photoshop software prior to version 6.0).
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And there's a bunch more. The live transparency from within a particular application can become a flattened transparency due to the type of object as well.

For your reading plasure:

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/cr...ansparency.pdf

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/cr...cs3ip_pdfx.pdf

[GerryI]

That looks like a bug in Acrobat's conversion. If the circle is opaque and on top of the rays then the flattening should work better than that. The flattening process that Designer Pro uses when exporting PDF/X isn't currently as advanced as that done by Acrobat/Illustrator as when we implemented a similar system it also produced various similar ghosting effects. It is hoped that we can revisit this in the future to generate better results though this still won't necessarily avoid all issues when using transparent objects.

Gerry

[mwenz]

Gerry,

It might well be an Acro bug. Regardless, we end users need to find work-arounds in the various apps we use <g>.

Regardless of the Acrobat profile, PDF/X conversion is producing these artifacts from within Acrobat. These issues come up on the Acrobat and Illy forums on occasion. Somehow the print industry got along without PDF/X for quite a while.

Heck, if you really want to have some fun, try printing this XAR file directly to Acrobat's printer driver.

So as long as I can soft and hard proof I don't really care what/which profile I use. I have *never* had a bad PDF hit the printer. Only a few times when feeding postscript to rips have I had a bad file. There are (almost) always a way.

Take care, Mike

[Luciano]

I think that the problem is due to the fact that the transparency is treated internally as RGB in Xara, while the surrounding part of your image as colours defined as CMYK.
When the pdf is generated the RGB has to be translated to CMYK and here Designer is not precise.
I put a transparent rectangle under the shadows in the right-side part of the picture. (turn to "outlines " view to see it.)

Note the difference between the left and right part of the pdf output (x1a).

[mwenz]

Hello Luciano--quite right. Thank you for that.

I believe after looking at the file again, the blur also does the same thing. The brighter colors in the halo area should have been a good clue.

And, as with a file giving one the fits, exported as a TIFF and then converted to a PDF fixes many ills as well.

take care, Mike

[Advocate]

So for this "Sunrays " file, I should export as a TIFF and then convert the TIFF to a PDF/X-1a? Should I do that for all the files? (I could remove the ghosting underneath the sun image by grouping the rays, putting a circle in the center, then combine shapes, then subtract them.) But the big problem is the shadowy halo as I originally pointed out.

TIA

[mwenz]

Hi Advocate,

Actually, the work-around in Luciano's post works wonderfully as seen in the screen shot.

Take care, Mike

[Luciano]

Just to add something to the work-around, I'd suggest to keep all you want to remain as vectors (i.e. text) on a layer above the rest of the drawing.

RGB conversion to CMYK values works much better in tiff export than in PDF, if Xara developers could use the same values in PDF procedures, then many users' problems would be automatically solved.

[Albacore]

What Luciano has done is the standard way to treat the RGB effects, it works for text as well, on transparent background. The rule for transparencies put on a separate layer with a mask this includes all RGB effects and any text on the top most layer. If you had a copy of AI on your disc have a look at the difference between the left and right hand side. It wasn't till about 10 years ago that you could get printers easily to handle transparencies without moaning and some still do.

[Albacore]

I also should have stated that in AI you will receive warnings when printing even to your desktop printer that you have that the document contains "art work that requires flattening" or if you haven't set up your "Resolution of Raster Effects" to suit the output of your drawing. Adobe also takes these warnings into InDesign as well although their treatment is slightly different as the PDF output is to a higher quality I think