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September 13, 2007

Guest speaker Lisa Forester, from Adobe Systems, revisited the IDUG Portland Chapter with the topic of Transparency Effects and Applications. With an ever-evolving commitment to its customers, Adobe has charged its Creative Suite 3 to minimize the problems relating to printing and the handling of transparencies, such as undesired color conversions, rasterization of elements, artifacts, and slow print and processing times. Lisa's introduction to this seminar was to assure InDesign users that Adobe, in relation to this issue of transparencies, has been very responsive.

Handling of transparency is much improved in CS3 applications due to the new Adobe PDF Print Engine, which is the long-awaited update to Adobe's PostScript version 3. This introduces the new PDF/X4 standard, which will become the new industry standard as printers upgrade to the new technology. Lisa advised all members to discuss this new standard with their printers and use it when appropriate.

Lisa expanded the topic on transparencies by identifying types found in Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and of course, InDesign. Her approach involved the use of “good layout hygiene” such as taking advantage of InDesign's Flattener Preview, Transparency Flattener Presetting, and proper exportation of rasterized files!

Transparency in Adobe Applications
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Adam Kyle Simpson
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