Here’s the scenario: You place into a picture box a non-rectangular EPS or a raster image with a clipping path. Instead of seeing the objects behind the box through the negative areas of the image, you see opaque white. Something’s not right.
Your first step would be to examine the clipping settings—make sure that the image background is being clipped out—right? When the clipping settings prove correct, the next step is usually recreating the picture box and placing the picture in again. Then, it’s on to Photoshop or Illustrator to see why the clipping path wasn’t properly saved. When resaving the image and importing into the XPress layout still fail… Well, it gets ugly from there.
This process, beginning with the clipping settings, seems logical, but before you embark on that tact, check the Colors palette. Is the box filled with white?
Picture boxes are filled with white by default, so anything placed in them will have an opaque white background. Remove the box background color, and all is right with the world once again.
Most of the time we remember such a simple thing, but when we forget… It’s the simple things that always get experienced users, and they usually get resolved eventually, and usually with palm smacking forehead accompanied by a self-deprecating comment. Let this be just one reminder to spare you time and the embarassment of a red hand print on your forehead.
This makes sense. But what happens, when you create an alpha channel in photoshop, and when you import it into InDesign the clipping path around the object is fine, but the inside of the object, where you have clipped out, shows up white? And the edges are jagged? It makes no sense. However, what really makes no sense, is that when you import this same image into XPress, all seems fine and the image is perfect, with no white spots and a nice smooth path? Really confused, please help???
I imported a tiff file into Quark 6, and the clipping path does not show correctly, and I cannot figure out how to fix this!