Use the Transparency pane to specify how transparency is handled at export.

• The Vector Images control lets you specify a resolution for rasterizing pictures that include vector data when they occur in a transparency relationship. It’s generally a good idea to keep this value high because vector images typically include sharp lines that will look jagged at lower resolutions. This field also controls the rendering resolution for bitmap frames in a transparency relationship.
• The Blends control lets you specify a resolution for blends when they occur in a transparency relationship. Blends can typically be rasterized at a relatively low resolution because they do not contain sharp edges.
• The Drop Shadows control lets you specify a resolution for rasterizing drop shadows. This value can be relatively low, unless you create drop shadows with a Blur of zero.

Choosing a lower resolution value for one or more of these fields can reduce the time required for flattening and can save processing time when you send the layout to output.

Rotated or skewed items that participate in a transparency relationship must be rasterized before they are sent to the RIP. Because rotate and skew operations tend to degrade the quality of an image if they are performed at low resolutions, QuarkXPress can upsample such items prior to rotating or skewing them, thus minimizing image degradation. Check Upsample Rotations if you want to manually set the upsampled resolution for rotated or skewed items and images that are involved in a transparency relationship. If you’re using low-resolution values, and a rotated or skewed item appears blocky or degraded, check this box and then enter a value in the To field. The To field value should be at least equal to the highest resolution value among the Vector Images, Blends, and Drop Shadows fields.

The dpi for images less than field lets you specify a value above which rotated or skewed items are not upsampled. The purpose of this field is to prevent rotated or skewed items that are near the Upsample Rotations To value from being needlessly upsampled. In general, set this value to about 100dpi less than the Upsample Rotations To value.

To print items without taking their opacity values into account, check Ignore Transparency Flattening. All items are treated as 100% opaque, regardless of the opacity value applied, and drop shadows and picture masks are ignored. This option can be useful for troubleshooting transparency-related output issues.

To control the resolution of the flattened transparency in imported PDF and Adobe Illustrator files, enter a value in the Flattening Resolution field.