Has anyone solved the black background issue with copy and pasted images?
I have tried a number of pdf readers without success.
I understand from other threads that it does not happen universally with all images and that it is related to the image having an alpha channel.
Thank you,
Tom
This issue appears to be something that persists on Windows machines. I am unable to locate any definite information from Adobe regarding the problem, but it doesn't appear to be something we have control over when creating PDFs.
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My guess is that the original image that is being used in the InDesign document has a transparent background (i.e., the background was removed in Photoshop leaving a transparent background).
Often transparent backgrounds in images cause that black background when copied and pasted from a PDF.
If you export the image, you can usually then open it in Photoshop and save it as a flattened jpg, tif ect with a white background
Marc: Part of the problem though is that the image is already flattened upon removal from the PDF and prior to being opened in any other Windows app. There is no longer an alpha channel at all. Perhaps even worse, there is also a great deal of noise within the 'black background'. This complicates using both the magic wand and blend-if options because you end up doing away with internal line art, the black leather on boots and belts, etc.
Thomas: I've been trying to years to find a solution without success. In my experience, the best workaround is to take a screen capture of PDF artwork and then editing it in Photoshop/GIMP, etc. At least that way, the pre-existing background will blend smoothly with the artwork rather than the glaring black that you and I see when we export the images directly. My advice is to either draw a freehand lasso with a few pixels of feathering, or to remove the unneeded areas with an eraser that has hardness of 50% or less.
Hope this helps.
If you export the images as .png files, the background is white.
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Marc: Part of the problem though is that the image is already flattened upon removal from the PDF and prior to being opened in any other Windows app. There is no longer an alpha channel at all. Perhaps even worse, there is also a great deal of noise within the 'black background'. This complicates using both the magic wand and blend-if options because you end up doing away with internal line art, the black leather on boots and belts, etc.
Hi there!
Note that I am not referring to copying the image out of the PDF, I am talking about exporting them. Exporting them and then opening the image(s) in question in Photoshop will give you an image file you can work with. I've done it many times :)
Marc: I wasn't talking about copy/paste either. I've used Some PDF Image Extractor, Irfan View (and a couple others I can no longer remember) to export graphics and have encountered the same issue with each one. What Windows program are you using that actually maintains the alpha channel?
Check out Nitro Reader, I use it to export my images from PDFs and PNGs and it keeps the transparency.
Installing and crossing my fingers... :)
EDIT: Well, Nitro Reader still seems to make a mess of things, but at least the TIF file gives me an alpha channel (flipped along the X-axis for some reason) that I can then make a layer mask out of. Not perfect, but it's better than nothing.
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Marc: I wasn't talking about copy/paste either. I've used Some PDF Image Extractor, Irfan View (and a couple others I can no longer remember) to export graphics and have encountered the same issue with each one. What Windows program are you using that actually maintains the alpha channel?
Check out Nitro Reader, I use it to export my images from PDFs and PNGs and it keeps the transparency.Installing and crossing my fingers... :)
Laithoron, it isn't really a Windows thing, so much as a case of using the right application for the job :) Regardless of platform (I use both Macintosh and Windows) the application I use for working with PDFs (and the one I would recommend every time to anyone else) is Adobe Acrobat Pro. It can export images with few clicks, along with a million other cool things!
Marc, I've been told by Paizo (in the past) than on Macs you can simply drag and drop from Adobe Reader to the desktop and get a perfect TIFF. Doing the same in the Windows version of Adobe Reader results in the aforementioned problem. I've also tried several other extractor apps [for Windows] over the years that all had the similar failing.
OS issue or not, that's why I specified I want to know of a Windows app that does it properly.
As for Acrobat Pro, it's good to know that it at least can perform the export properly. However, since I don't need to work with PDFs enough to justify the cost, I'll probably just create a custom action for Photoshop that can do it from that Nitro app Andrew mentioned.
Thanks for the info, both of you. :)
Tried out Nitro and works perfect.
