IDCS3: Why is a grayscale JPG is acting transparent?

About a year ago, I went from IDCS to IDCS-3 (yeah, I skipped vs 2). In the original vs. I could add a black color to an image box which contained a photo fading into black--this way, I could have a larger black box in my design than the image would allow and still use a smaller image file.

Now in vs3, I am placing a grayscale image in my IDCS doc, but it seems to act transparent (it's a JPG--a raster image). I don't like having to add extra boxes to create the effect of a larger box. What is going on here?

A little help, please?

Sitalinda

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It's a change Adobe made

Mon, 12/15/2008 - 10:56 — James

They made a change to the way grayscale images work.

You have a few options. You could re-save the image as a CMYK file (if it's going to be printed) or an RGB file (if it's just for on-screen viewing) and update the image in InDesign.

Or, instead of filling the box with a color, leave the fill white, but add a border and make it the color you want. Then increase the size of the border to what you want, with the Align Stroke setting set to "outside' instead of inside or middle.

Hope that helps.

Thank you, so much, James.

Mon, 12/15/2008 - 19:13 — Sitalinda

Thank you, so much, James. I'm so glad you told me... I've been checking for answers on this everywhere--and even the Adobe forum didnt'have an answer for me.

I may try the CMYK way... my pic has to be K only so I hope there won't be any issues; this is to print 1/1 and I'm using K as my basic 1 color--I let the printer output the one separation (K) and we choose the PMS separately as my layout is based on previous vs. of this piece.

Thanx again,
Sitalinda

You're welcome

Wed, 12/17/2008 - 08:17 — James

Regarding the CMYK route. You can make sure that your CMYK image only prints black by copying the grayscale image and pasting it into the black channel only in the Channels palette.

An important part of any

Sun, 01/04/2009 - 14:37 — Sindy (not verified)

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