If I run the following with pdftex I get a rather black square (checked in three pdf viewers). With luatex I get a rather light gray square, which looks imho wrong as color values between 0 and 0.2 should be dark. The png can be found here: https://i.stack.imgur.com/8JrYD.png \ifcsname directlua\endcsname \pdfvariable compresslevel 0 \pdfvariable objcompresslevel 0 \saveimageresource attr{/Decode [0 0.2 0 0.2 0 0.2]}{blue_square.png} \useimageresource\the\lastsavedimageresourceindex \else \pdfcompresslevel 0 \pdfobjcompresslevel 0 \pdfximage attr{/Decode [0 0.2 0 0.2 0 0.2]}{blue_square.png} \leavevmode\pdfrefximage \the\pdflastximage \fi \bye pdftex adds a transparency group which is missing in luatex, but it didn't change when I added that manually. The other difference between both engines is that pdftex adds the /Decode array only to the image object dictionary and not also to the Smask dictionary: With pdftex I get as image object dictionary << /Decode [0 0.2 0 0.2 0 0.2] /Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /Width 115 /Height 115 /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceRGB /SMask 8 0 R /Length 39675

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and as SMask dictionary << /Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /Width 115 /Height 115 /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceGray /Length 13225

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The image dictionary with luatex is identical but the SMask has also a /Decode array: << /Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /Decode [0 0.2 0 0.2 0 0.2] /Width 115 /Height 115 /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace /DeviceGray /Length 13225 >> If I disable the Decode array by replacing /Decode with /Dexode then the expected dark square appears. -- Ulrike Fischer http://www.troubleshooting-tex.de/