Drop shadow problem

[Mark Heine]

My drop shadows usually work as expected but I have an ID file that someone else worked on - when I export to PDF there is a white box around the area of the shadow and I can't fix it on this file.

[Sandee Cohen]

How was the PDF produced? The first thought I have is that someone chose Acrobat 4 which wouldn't support the Drop Shadow transparency.

[Gerald Singelmann]

possibly a spot colour in the background. try using the "overprint preview" in acrobat

[Peter Toohey]

I've given up trying to get a drop shadow produced in ID and exported to pdf - Acrobat 5.
Tried everything, still no luck.
Peter Toohey

[Evan Perry]

Change your spot colors to process and select high quality for transparency flattening.

That should do the trick!

EP

[Peter Toohey]

Thanks Evan but tried that and it didn't work.

Whwn view in acrobat, the white box is actually around the drop shadow and of course you can move it by selecting object but all that does is move the drop shadow from the line of text leaving a white background.
I've got to be doing something wrong but judging from the number of queries about drop shadows I'm not too sure.
Peter

[Eric Schweinhagen]

I have had the same problem with drop shadows and a light, white transparent box appearing, although in my case it happens only very rarely. I've exported directly to PDF from ID2.01 (on a G4350 OS9.2) to both Acrobat 4 and 5 and both of them handle the transparency without any trouble -- nearly all of the time. Also, I've had it show up when exporting to post script and distilling. Again, only very rarely. As I've stated in the past, I've gotten away with it thus far by describing it as a design choice. Look how readable that headline is!!!

But that'll only carry me so far. By the way, in every case that this happens I've had shadowed type over a photo. Sometimes b&w, sometimes cmyk, but always tiffs. I've tried all the suggestions here to no avail. I'm waiting for the next time it shows up so I can try to see if it is font related. However, we typically use the same basic fonts for everything, so the font issue is an unlikely answer.

[ecreative]

Are you using two different color models, e.g., the text is a CMYK color and the photos are RGB?

Is color management turned on in InDesign? In Photoshop? Are they set the same way?

Are you embedding CMS profiles in the placed graphics that differ from the setting you are using in InDesign?

I don't know if this will make a difference or not, but you might look into these things.

-david

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

I believe the drop shadow is created in InDesgin and not in Photoshop. I have seen this behavior, but not that often and not very consistantly.

Worst comes to worst create the drop shadow in Photoshop—I know it will requie more time and more planning, but if the client will not buy again the “I've gotten away with it thus far by describing it as a design choice. Look how readable that headline is!!!” then use photoshop.

I would still keep using InDesign drop shadow feature only in areas where it does not work I would go to Photoshop; But that is just me and my limited knowledge.

[Eric Schweinhagen]

David: I use no color management anywhere. When it comes to color management, I ride the short bus. Best that I avoid it completely. Thanks

Marco: The cliend is the editor across the hall. He's pretty understanding. I love drop shadow feature in ID and wouldn't trade it for anything. No longer having to switch back and forth from Photoshop to ID just for shadows is a huge blessing. I'll live with the occasional oddity until a solution comes along. Thanks

[Tim Mandrake]

If no other solutions work and it only happens with shadows placed over TIFFs, can you resave the TIFF as PSD?

Tim

[Eric Schweinhagen]

PSD is a possibility, albeit a silly step to have to take. I've always used tiffs with much success. This has got to be some sort of freaky bug or something. However, the next time it happens, I will resave the image as psd and see if it takes away the problem. Also, I'll try changing fonts to see if that works. One way or another I'm going to figure this out. Unfortunately, the last time it happened I was so on deadline I had no real time to play detective. Next time... that bug is mine.

[Henk Zeelenberg]

I'm not quite sure yet whether the problem described only occurs when viewing the pdf in Acrobat, or also when printing.

A few hints:
In Acrobat 5.0.5
-make sure Overprint Preview is switched on.
-set the Acrobat preference to Smooth Line art (Edit-->Preferences-->General-->Display).

In InDesign
-choose the appropriate transparency blend space
-if creating a flattened pdf (i.e. pdf 1.3) make sure to use a flattener style that has Clip Complex Regions turned on.
-export to Acrobat 5 compatibility

If printing to a desktop printer: turn off 'advanced' color management settings in the printer when printing. I have seen big differences doing this.

I don't know if this will help in these particular instances, and there are other possible factors, but these are the most common tricks for the most common similar issues.

[Diane King]

I remember working on a book that I had to export to a tagged e-book PDF out of InDesign for web publishing. I noticed that a bunch of my transparent effects did not translate properly. The Photoshop images had white backgrounds instead of being transparent. I then noted that one of the little messages I got when I performed an export (which I rarely read because they usually tell me stuff I don't need to know) said that there was a conflict between some of the e-book PDF features and transparency. I did not have ID drop shadows in this document, but I'm wondering if this perhaps is your problem. There appears to be features in PDF that conflict with each other depending on the type of file you are trying to create. I don't do e-book PDFs very often, so I didn't mentally file it as something important to remember.

For that particular job, I ended up just grouping the blended Photoshop files in ID and copying and pasting them into a new Photoshop file and saving them as a flattened tiff, which I then used to replace the group items in ID.

[XaoS]

Write a PostScript file down to level 2, then use Distiller to create your PDF. It takes longer, but the white box will be gone.

[Eric Schweinhagen]

I'm not sure Post Scripting down to level 2 is going to work for me. I have specific Prinergy Refiner settings I've received from my printer that specify Level 3.

Diane: I've never had any error messages returned during this process -- either going the Post Script route, or exporting directly from ID.

Thanks for the help, though.

[ken mcguire]

This may seem remedial, but is the drop shadow set to Multiply?

[Eric Schweinhagen]

Ken: Yes, at least in my case the drop shadow is set to multiply.

[Peter Schioler]

If ur using spotcolors on the job ur have to export it as Acrobat 5. if not, try to enable Simulta Overprint, this should work too for Acrobat 4..!!

[Alex Ganuza]

It's Saturday and I've been pulling my hair out with this very problem. I have the solution! I'm new to Indesign, converting from Quark, and after a few hours of fiddling, I've come to the solution.

This problem appears when exporting as a pdf to version 4. It hasn't appeared when converting to 5, however, being that my film outputer needs version 4, this didn't help me much. Also, outputting to 5, I wasn't able to apply a color to a grayscale image, because that would appear as a negative. I also noticed, with the help of others on this board, that it would only show up when a drop shadow was placed over a placed image (tif or psd) AND another color box. The solution was quite simple; all of my colors had been selected as spot colors, being a quark user I never had to worry about converting to cmyk. When you're ready to output, just convert all of your spot colors to cmyk, and voila!!! all problems solved. I know this must be a bug that adobe will fix in the future, but I've pulled a lot of hairs out today trying to figure this out, and even did several test files and I can confidently say that this solved the problem.

Hope this helps!

[Eric Schweinhagen]

Alex: Unfortunately it doesn't solve my problem. The only colors I use in my documents are CMYK. But, I'm glad your problem is solved.

[Alex Ganuza]

Eric: Really very sorry you're problem wasn't fixed. I know how frustrating it is when it happens rarely and you can't figure out what's going on. I like to immerse myself when working with a new application so that I don't have to wait until I'm working on a project with a tight deadline and have to deal with nonsence. I'll keep an eye out on this board for when you have a problem, and hopefully we can all work together to solve it. Lord knows this board has helped me more than a little.

[PeteMac]

If the object's bounding box printed with a tinted fill color one of the printer's default settings could be causing this to happen. To fix the problem, click the Printer button in the Print dialog box, choose Printer Specific Options > Color Correction and then choose None (the default is Automatic).

Could this apply to the general background colour of the box too? Not sure if this affects PDF generation.

[Eric Schweinhagen]

Alex: Thanks for the kind words. Frustrating is certainly a good word for it when a problem happens as sporadically as this. If/when it happens again, I'm going to very carefully document everything that goes into the file and will post it all here.

PeteMac: Don't think this applies to me. Always export as post script first, before distilling. Printer options, I don't believe, come into play. Besides, it still wouldn't explain how this can happen with one cutline on a page, but not another cutline on the same page. Thanks.