Frames showing up over black

CS3. I'm working on a book cover with a black background (C75, M68, Y67, K90; this so that the background will blend with a graphic submitted by a designer hired by my client). The frames in my layout are leaving faint lines when I look at the document in preview mode; these show up more clearly when I export the document to pdf. What could be causing this and how do I get rid of it?
Frames showing up over black
This sounds like ''stitching,'' which is a transparency flattening artifact. Generally it only shows up on screen or in low-resolution printing and is not a problem with hi-res output.



You can eliminate the problem in PDF altogether by changing the compatibility to Acrobat 5 or later and exporting. Printing to PDF always flattens transparency, so that isn't a good option.



Peter
Frames showing up over black
I figured out what I was doing wrong. I used rectangles instead of frames and all had black strokes. Hard to see on a black background. Should probably use frames, but I find the diagonal lines distracting.

Rectangles are fine. Just remove the stroke. :)

Is there a way to set a preference to draw rectangles with no stroke by default?

With nothing selected, set 0pt for your stroke setting.



New objects drawn in that file will have no stroke by default.



To make this the default for all new documents, close all documents and then set the default stroke to 0pt.



Of course now any lines you draw will also be 0pt, so you will have to select them and set the required thickness.



k

If image frames are stroked by default then you are using the rectangle tool instead of the frame tool. The frame tool (the one on the left with the X in it) ignores any fill or stroke settings you might have wanted to set as defaults and ALWAYS sets frames to no stroke and no fill.



Peter

Circumnavigating the thread Peter ?? :-)



k

I just wanted to point out that frame behavior is a bit unintuitive, not to mention contrary to the documentation. You can set all the default strokes and fills you want, even set a default object style that includes strokes and fills for the frame tools, and it will be completely ignored (frames are actually reset to the [None] object style after they are drawn), which annoys me no end, but I can't do anything about it.



So if you want to have a frame with some sort of stroke by default you have to make a shape instead (only difference between shapes and frames is shapes have no content expectation by default, and frames expect graphics, and of course shapes can have fills or strokes and frames can't).



Sooooo... If Clark learns the difference between the tools in the box this particular problem is self-correcting, plus he can set up an object style for keylined images and set it as the default if he wants to have the best of both worlds -- use the frame tool for no stroke and the rectangle tool for strokes. One caveat, though. If you set the object style as the default, then change the settings for the tool with nothing selected, the object style will be locally overridden.

Something I have never understood is the use of graphics frames to create a holder for a placed image. Perhaps it's

having a grounding in early PageMaker, which was not frames based, but it seems to me far easier and more logical to

just place the image and then crop/scale it to requirements. If you place an image in a frame you are going to have to

do this anyway so it just seems an extra step.



I accept that for designs where the graphics have fixed dimensions, placing into a frame dictates those dimensions. But

no two pictures ever crop ideally to the same proportions. And something in me says that while the appearance of a

design is important, it cannot overrule the content and must be flexible enough to get the best from each content element.



k

I seldom pre-draw a frame either, but I frequently drag the frame while I place to size it for the space. In CS4 that even scales the image now. :)