pdf sharpness around shadows

[behzad]

I have noticed where shadows appear the sharpness is lost. This happens on pdf export for print. Why is that?

[Ross Macintosh]

Must have something to do with the shadows being a bitmapped effect. Perhaps someone in the know can explain in detail and if there is any practical work-arounds.

behzad, do you have a non-zoomed in example where this effect has been a problem once printed?

Regards, Ross

[David O'Neil]

Your example seems to indicate that if you bring the object in front of the shadow, the bitmapping effect will disappear. Maybe.

[behzad]

I will attach the file in xara format here.
Thanks for your help. Apparently this happens for prepress only. For normal reader it is fine.

[behzad]

check this out, i placed the strike on top but now the top portion of black circle is all bitmaped

I also like to have the line to appear below the circle, therefore the shadow of the circle would have to overlap the red line

[David O'Neil]

See the attached. Export as Acrobat 5 or higher, not the PDFXXXX options.

[behzad]

Must have something to do with the shadows being a bitmapped effect. Perhaps someone in the know can explain in detail and if there is any practical work-arounds.

behzad, do you have a non-zoomed in example where this effect has been a problem once printed?

Regards, Ross

I had to export my design as tif for prepress, pdf was the issue.

[behzad]

I guess no solution to this?

[Albacore]

Use vector shapes and not the Shadow Tool. Causes problems in Illy as well but not quite to the same extent as it is rasterized and it also has a lot to do with the conversion from RGB to CMYK in the PDF export.

[behzad]

So it seems good old Tif is still the way to go.