Indesign – transparency, text appears pixelated and fuzzy

[dominikj65234843]

Hi,

I am using the latest Indesign cc 2018. I am creating layout for print. I've already changed the flatten transparency settings to not get the white box. However, when I import RGB tif file with transparency, the text appears pixelated. The transparency blend is set to the CMYK, altough when I change it to RGB the text appears normal. Could somebody explain the difference in the transparency blend mode? The output file will be CMYK PDF.

Thanks

[rob day]

I've already changed the flatten transparency settings to not get the white box.

When there's any transparent object on a page, all color on the page is previewed in the chosen Transparency Blend Space—the actual color doesn't change, it's just the preview that's changing. If you choose RGB, out-of-gamut RGB color will preview unchanged—unless you turn on Overprint Preview, which always forces the preview of process color into the document's CMYK space whether there's transparency or not.

InDesign allows a mix of color spaces on a page, there's no document color space the way there is in Photoshop and Illustrator. On export you can choose to leave all color unchanged and transparency live (i.e. PDF/X-4), or you can flatten transparency and convert into a single destination color space (PDF/X-1a). If you flatten on export the chosen transparency blend space is used.

[dominikj65234843]

Thank you very much for the great explanation! Actually i still don't get why transparency ruins the text preview, (I am not applying the transparency to the text), as soon as I remove the transparent image, the text is back to normal. The text is placed away from the transparent image. I am having the same issue: Transparency effects make all text JAGGED - Adobe Indesign Windows

My PC specs:

CPU: i5 8400

GPU: Intel UHD 630

16GB DDR4 RAM

Windows 10 home 64bit.

The first one is the pixelated version when transparent image is presented, the second one is normal.

Bez názvu 1 - PostIMG

When I change the transparency blend space to RGB, it seems to get rid of that issue.

[rob day]

I don't see any difference with white on black text on OSX. Is there a problem in an exported PDF if you use the PDF/X-4 preset?

Any transparent object on the spread will affect the preview of the entire spread and not just the transparent object.

[dominikj65234843]

I guess that the PDF exports correctly. But it is anoying in the preview mode, since the text starts to look thinner than it actually is. So the workaround is to select the Transparency blend mode to the RGB, then the text is again antialiased and when exporting for the print, I will have to select the CMYK again. Anyways, I hope adobe will solve this issue, since it was doing it even on my previous computer.

[rob day]

I can't say for sure, but I think this is an OS thing. Usually the compliant is black text on white on a transparent page bolding, but I've never seen it on OSX.

What happens if you set your Appearance of Black preference to Display All Blacks as Rich Black?

Also, usually the rational for using the CMYK blend space is you don't want to export 4-color blacks when there's transparency on the page and that would be a problem if you are forced into a flattened CMYK export (PDF/X-1a). But, if you can export live transparency (PDF/X-4) it's not a problem and I prefer RGB when I'm using different blending modes.