Preserving transparency – What is best filetype for variety of applications

KN
Posted By
Ken_Nielsen
Dec 31, 2008
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508
Replies
10
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Closed
Working in prepress, I’ve been asked to provide a file that now has an object on a layer with transparent background. This may be used in Publisher, InDesign, Word or what ever a client may be working with. Is there one best format that can be linked in all programs and still preserve transparency? Will the tiff format preserve transparency?

I’ve tried PNG, for one format, but the result gives a strange background anomaly when printing to digital. I know Photoshop is recommended with Adobe products. Need more input on this subject from those who know.

Thanks,

Ken
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B
Buko
Dec 31, 2008
Will the tiff format preserve transparency?

Tiff or PSD.

PNG for Word.
PM
Paul M Norman
Dec 31, 2008
PNG works in a variety of circumstances and can be read by a great many software applications. It is safe to use on the Web these days because all modern browsers support it. It’s easy enough to convert it to a transparent GIF if you need to (vector art in this case please).
JD
John_Danek
Dec 31, 2008
A .psd will hold up best. A .tiff will not support transparency, at least that’s been my experience when placing .tiff’s in Illustrator.
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Dec 31, 2008
Thanks for input.

My problem with PNG is that is is showing up a ‘ghosted’ background, square-cut to the image size crop, so is not truly transparent (InDesign CS3 output to a Konica Minolta digital printer.
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Dec 31, 2008
I’m wondering how a digital copier is able to detect what is a transparent background in the placed Photoshop image, placed in InDesign.

The transparent part is completely void of pixels.

Hmm…
SW
Scott_Weichert
Jan 1, 2009
Indesign flattens upon printing. The copier never sees transparency.
AS
abe slaney
Jan 2, 2009
On Dec 31 2008, 4:18 pm, wrote:
I’m wondering how a digital copier is able to detect what is a transparent background in the placed Photoshop image, placed in InDesign.

The transparent part is completely void of pixels.

Hmm…

Make sure there are no spot colors in your InDesign document. When I have a transparent .psd over a spot/PMS background, I always get the box ghosts on our color printer. Convert to CMYK, they disappear.
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Jan 6, 2009
I’m not sure I get that Scott, but it makes sense. Are you saying that a background is created in InDesign when printing? that sure is the way it looks: Semi invisible but with a definite square cut background that shows the actual image size. Does this happen with clipping path images, I’m going to test that today. Let’s hope clipping will do it.
WZ
Wade_Zimmerman
Jan 6, 2009
John Danek

AI CS 4 supports advanced tiffs, I have asked for this support for four versions now and you see eventually Adobe does get you what you want.

Here take a look this is a placed tiff no clipping path or clipping mask.

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ym6rJ1UtNlKYlPxNR J0TJ0i2Ul61W0>
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Jan 11, 2009
Ïollow up: using Photoshop file with clipping path solved the problem, and with a beautiful result, got kudos at company meeting.

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