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decreases the probability of stitching by ensuring that the raster/vector boundary falls
along existing objects’ edges. If stitching occurs in PDF files exported from InDesign,
turn off Smooth Images in Adobe Acrobat (in the Smoothing panel in the Preferences
dialog box). If the stitching disappears after changing the preferences, it’s only a screen
display artifact and typically does not appear in printed output.
Original art
Detail of flattened art; stitching is visible starting
halfway through the F and in blue area near top
Consider creating and testing your custom preset in advance so that if a job comes through
that requires altering the transparency flattener settings, you don’t need to wonder what will
work.
Previewi ng t rans pare nc y f l at te ne r p re se t s
Adobe InDesign CS lets you highlight the effects of any transparency flattener preset on
screen using the new Flattener Preview palette. Because it can take time to calculate the
effects of flattening, you control when the display refreshes. When you’re satisfied with the
output quality indicated by the flattener preview, you can apply the currently viewed settings
to the document’s print output settings by clicking the Apply Settings to Print button.
When you use the Flattener Preview palette, you specify what kind of results you want to see
and what flattener preset to apply. This displays all objects in the document window as gray
except for the areas affected by the settings you specified, which are shown in red. If you
want, you can even edit the document while previewing flattening.
Here’s how you might use the Flattener Preview palette with a magazine cover. If you set the
Flattener Preview palette to highlight All Rasterized Regions, you’ll see all areas that must be
rasterized to output transparency effects used on the magazine cover. The red highlight may
alert you to areas of type that would be rasterized due to the interaction between transpar-
ency and the specified flattener preset. Because type must be printed at a high resolution to
appear smooth (at least 1200 dpi), you’ll decide that a preset such as High Resolution must
be applied to the document (or at least to the cover).