# Transparency issues when creating a book



## ST-EOS (Oct 26, 2017)

Operating System: Operating system: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version:-Lightroom Classic version: 7.0 [ 1140024 ] License: Creative Cloud 

I'm currently creating a book which has 240 pages. However when I tried to upload it to Blurb (prior to the Lightroom Classic upgrade) I received a message regarding some pages with transparencies. I abandoned the upload to Blurb and used "Export Book to PDF" to try and overcome the transparency issues. However I don't see any areas in the PDF that show as opaque! which is how the error message describes the issue. 

Any suggestion on where to start to overcome this issue would be most welcome.

Image of error message attached.


----------



## Smathia (Oct 26, 2017)

Were these images tiffs or had layers?  Flatten those or just save as jpg.


----------



## ST-EOS (Oct 26, 2017)

Smathia said:


> Were these images tiffs or had layers?  Flatten those or just save as jpg.



Thanks for the quick response, the images identified on the individual pages are all tiffs. However the majority of the other images within the book are also tiffs. But they are not being reported as having transparency which is what is puzzling me. 


Sent from somewhere in Gods County using Tapatalk


----------



## Smathia (Oct 26, 2017)

are they layered? Try flattening


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Oct 26, 2017)

The transparent areas will become white, and because your background is also white, you won't see a difference. That's also why you didn't see anything in that pdf.


----------



## Rob_Cullen (Oct 27, 2017)

I ignore the warnings- and as stated by Johan- the transparent areas will show as page white. Even using a Page background that is colored (eg. black) my transparent areas remain as white in a book.


----------



## ST-EOS (Oct 28, 2017)

Thanks for all of your responses and my apologies for not responding sooner, life got in the way. I'm still working on fine tuning the book content and will hopefully complete it. However this afternoon whilst working on it LR crashed, just prior to the crash it appeared that the book had 242 pages (the maximum is 240) all I was trying to do was change one page layout to a two image page from a single image page. I did send the crash report to Adobe and supplied an email address just in case they wish to give me feedback on the crash.

See below for my replies to your responses, thanks again everyone.  




Smathia said:


> are they layered? Try flattening



Thanks for responding Smathia, I have checked the first couple of the images reported with transparency and I don't see any layers. However I have more investigations to make sure there aren't any with layers. 



JohanElzenga said:


> The transparent areas will become white, and because your background is also white, you won't see a difference. That's also why you didn't see anything in that pdf.


Thanks Johan when I read your response my first thought was to go to each of the reported page images with a transparency and change the background colour to black. However even having changed the background colour I still didn't see any transparent areas on any of the pages.



I-See-Light said:


> I ignore the warnings- and as stated by Johan- the transparent areas will show as page white. Even using a Page background that is colored (eg. black) my transparent areas remain as white in a book.



Thanks "I-see-Light for responding, as you will see from my response to Johan above. I to tried the change of background colour but to no avail.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Oct 28, 2017)

ST-EOS said:


> Thanks Johan when I read your response my first thought was to go to each of the reported page images with a transparency and change the background colour to black. However even having changed the background colour I still didn't see any transparent areas on any of the pages



That is because Lightroom does not support transparency at all.


----------



## ST-EOS (Nov 7, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> That is because Lightroom does not support transparency at all.



Thanks for responding Johan. 

What puzzles me is that the 18 problem images were already flattened tiff images with no layers. All eighteen having been taken from their basic edit in LR to PS for the final edit and then saved in tiff format. This is the same work flow that was used for the other 353 book images which the book module was quite happy with, even in their tiff format.

Having now finalised the book layout, out of the 371 images contained within it, 18 of those were flagging up as having transparency issues. Having checked out all of the 18 using the "export to PDF" option as described in a fix documented on the Blurb website (see below). There were no areas of transparency visible in the PDF!  

I also chose to round trip each of the images between LR and PS to confirm the tiffs were flattened, at the same time saving them as jpg's. I then used the jpg versions to replace the offending tiff images in the book.This is the method that Smathia suggested in response #2 above, which is also documented on the Blurb website.


Having searched the internet for this type of transparency problem, it seems that it is a known issue:-

The following is from the Blurb website:-

 
*"Photos with Transparency in Lightroom*
Did you receive a pop-up when uploading your book notifying you that one or more of your images contains transparency? This means that you have probably placed either a PNG or TIFF file in your project. *Note that any transparent parts of the image will be filled with white when rendered*.

You can test any affected pages by exporting your book to PDF via the _Export Book to PDF _option located to the lower left of the _Book Module_. Review the exported PDF to look for any problems. 

To fix an image that has been flattened with white:


Go to the source image.
Flatten and re-save it, or save as a JPG (which will automatically flatten the content).
Re-import any flattened JPG files into Lightroom, then into your book."


----------



## jimayfield (May 16, 2021)

I have done several books with Blurb via the Lightroom connection. They have all had the "Transparency" issue, but I've been able to move on, after I click "OK." The last two books I've tried refuse to upload? After I click the OK button, nothing happens. I am using Lightroom Classic V10, and have refused to update, because the last time I did, I had problems with the application failing to open. I went back to my former version, and all my images were workable.
Also using Big Sur 11.3.1


----------



## hanoman (May 17, 2021)

I made around 50 books with Lightroom, nearly all of them has transparency warning, because the images don't "fit"  exactly in the templates photo cell. The remaining space in the photo cell wil get the background color, which is in my case greyish.


----------

