Watermark with opacity

[Printing Partners]

I have a script from Marcom Customer Support for applying a watermark to an online proof. It works very well. However, I need it to "ghost" over the preview so that you can see or read what is under it.

I have tried applying opacity to the image, that didn't work. So I was wondering if it could be done with the Javascript. I created the scrip below, but the opacity is still 100% in the preview.

//This script applies the word PROOF to previews
//access the "isOnlinePreview" property and the "isPreview" property Text
 
onlinePreviewVal = FusionPro.Composition.JobOptions.isOnlinePreview;
desktopPreviewVal = FusionPro.Composition.isPreview;
 
//if this is a preview composition or a desktop preview
//then return the graphic "PROOF"
 
if (onlinePreviewVal == "Yes" || desktopPreviewVal == true)
    {
        FindGraphicFrame("watermark").suppress = false;
        FindGraphicFrame("watermark").style.opacity = "0.7";
        FindGraphicFrame("watermark").style.filter  = 'alpha(opacity=70)'; // IE fallback
    }
 
else 
     {
        FindGraphicFrame("watermark").suppress = true;
    }

Any ideas? Can this be done?

Thanks,
Steven

____
Fusion Pro Version: 9.3.26

[Printing Partners]

I still have not found a script solution. But did find that using a TIFF and reducing the opacity sort of works. MarcomCentral really pixelates the image, but it will work.

Still want a better solution if one exists.

[Dan Korn]

If you want to use text, you can't set the opacity, but you can set text to be outlined/stroked, in the Advanced Text Effects dialog. Select the frame, then click the button at the very bottom of the Text Frame Properties palette, to the right of the Overflow button. Then check the Stroke box.

If you want to use a graphic instead, then I would use a PDF, which you can set to have partially transparent text in an app such as Illustrator. Unlike a raster format such as TIFF, the text in a PDF is vector art, and won't be pixelated when it's scaled into a frame.

[Printing Partners]

Dan,
I tried the PDF route, changing the opacity of the vector image in Illustrator. The graphic would come in lighter, but have no transparency. You could not see the business card text under the graphic.
PDFs and opacity don't always play well with each other depending on what viewer is being used.

Since MarcomCentral uses Flash to preview the products, that might be my problem. But even downloading a PDF and looking at it in Acrobat it showed no opacity/transparency change. Again the graphic was lighter, but not transparent.

By using a TIFF, MarcomCentral preserved the transparency of the image and allowed the text underneath to show through. But then there is the whole bitmap problem of jagged edges. The result achieved was what I wanted, it just didn't look good.

So my thought was to see if I could get the Javascript to change the opacity of the vector image as it placed it. This might be the wrong way to approach it, but I am grasping at straws.

[David Miller]

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

Dan,
I tried the PDF route, changing the opacity of the vector image in Illustrator. The graphic would come in lighter, but have no transparency. You could not see the business card text under the graphic. PDFs and opacity don't always play well with each other depending on what viewer is being used.

Since MarcomCentral uses Flash to preview the products, that might be my problem. But even downloading a PDF and looking at it in Acrobat it showed no opacity/transparency change. Again the graphic was lighter, but not transparent.

We've used the attached PDF in hundreds of templates as a watermark for proofs in MarcomCentral. We've never had a problem with the transparency.

Can you post the PDF that you are trying to use?

[Dan Korn]

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

Dan,
I tried the PDF route, changing the opacity of the vector image in Illustrator. The graphic would come in lighter, but have no transparency. You could not see the business card text under the graphic.

Okay, that's not exactly what I suggested. But I did basically the same thing and got it to work. In Illustrator, I created a new document, then placed a raster image (a JPEG), then selected the layer containing the image in the Layers palette, then changed the layer's opacity in the Transparency palette. Then I saved that as a PDF, and used it as a resource in a graphic frame in FusionPro. I was able to see both other variable text and graphic content, as well as the static PDF background, behind the graphic.

The effect can be subtle, though, if the opacity of the graphic is too high, or the graphic and the contents behind it have similar luminosity.

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

PDFs and opacity don't always play well with each other depending on what viewer is being used.

That may be true, but Acrobat is the de facto arbiter of how a PDF should appear on screen. Although there are some Preferences in Acrobat which control how some things are displayed.

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

Since MarcomCentral uses Flash to preview the products, that might be my problem. But even downloading a PDF and looking at it in Acrobat it showed no opacity/transparency change. Again the graphic was lighter, but not transparent.

Well, if it's the same in Acrobat and in the Flash preview, then it's clearly not a viewer-specific issue.

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

By using a TIFF, MarcomCentral preserved the transparency of the image and allowed the text underneath to show through. But then there is the whole bitmap problem of jagged edges. The result achieved was what I wanted, it just didn't look good.

Yes, you want to avoid any extra rasterization or downsampling steps.

Originally Posted by Printing Partners

So my thought was to see if I could get the Javascript to change the opacity of the vector image as it placed it. This might be the wrong way to approach it, but I am grasping at straws.

No, you can't do that kind of image manipulation in FusionPro.