Always trying to improve this stupid thing
aitchmal0ne (220 pencils) | Tue, 2010-08-24 16:04I design a glossy magazine and up until now have always received camera ready files, then saved them as PDFs to be placed into InDesign. Is that the best thing to do for the most optimal printing quality? Or should I be saving as TIFFs or another file type? I understand that I have to export the final doc as a PDF to upload to the printer, but was curious if I could do anything else to improve the overall file reproduction.
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::heather malone
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
I think it doesn't matter what the format of the images are, but I may be wrong. Just make them as big as possible and as high color depth as possible. One thing to remember, do not make large images very small because they will become dark. If you need small images, resize them in Photoshop first.
when you say 'camera ready' files, what do you mean? (Reminds me of bromides many moons ago!)
If there is any vector data in the files (type or illustration) PDF is best as they preseve that data, which when sent to film or plate will retain it's sharpness. Saving as tiffs or jpegs will give fuzzy edges as you are converting lines to dots.
PDFs containing vector artwork will give hugely reduced sizes at better quality than rasterised versions of the same files.
PDF all the way if possible.
living on dreams and custard creams.
"Camera ready" meaning supplied by the customer which is usually a flat file that is a pdf or a jpg. I did ask the printer to tell me what they recommend and they said eps. Any thoughts?
::heather malone
Is the this same Heather Malone who wrote such captivating posts as "This Computer Hates Me", "Illustrator Is Trying To Kill me", and "Why In The World Is Creating URL Links So Difficult?!?!?!?!?!"
Girl, you KILL me!
It's been over two decades since the last production camera was moved into the basement where they have been collecting dust ever since. Today, we simply say 'I received image files' or 'CMYK files' or simply 'files'. Just say'n.
Truth be told, I believe it is *unusual* to use PDFs saved from Photoshop for use in InDesign. However, there is *nothing particularly wrong* with doing that. Lately, I believe all files should be kept in their native application format for import into InDesign. PSD files from photoshop. AI files from Illustrator.
As a matter of historical curiosity, prepress shops always say 'Use EPS' because, if you weren't careful, QuarkXPress would downsample TIFF images to 300ppi on output to print/postscript. Now, this could have been handy, but the downsampling was so horrid it was unusable and many rolls of film were sacrificed to this strange 'feature' of QuarkXPress.
Today, the reasons for using EPS file format exclusively have largely disappeared.
I'm wondering what quality improvements you want to see? I don't think your choice of file format is going to help.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
That Quark story is pure nonsense. You've been pulled into one of those production house old wive's tales, like... "every image has to be 300 ppi". The software doesn't do anything to the photo - all it does is feed a placeholder number to the imagesetter which retrieves the file from the disk and then images it in the spot Quark designated. Quark has absolutely nothing to do with the manner in which the tiff file is actually imaged. So if something went wrong with the final image - you don't look at Quark - you need to look at your RIP. I guarantee you it's not true Postscript. Look for the PS logo - if it's not on the RIP - it's not Postscript. It's an emulator. That's your problem.
Actually, not nonsense. A real technical issue I've had many personal experiences with and I've burned countless hundreds of square feet of imagesetter film on this one.
If I remember correctly, it was a check box buried in one of the multiple tabs of output options in QuarkXPress. If it wasn't set properly, TIFFs reduced inside of their picture boxes (making the effective ppi above a certain number in relation to the selected resolution of the output device) would be down-sampled using a Quark algorithm which wasn't as good as Adobe. In fact, it sucked.
Since this check box only addressed TIFF files, EPS were never down-sampled. Therefore, when a prepress person was asked what was the best file format, they say EPS.
We were using dedicated 'true' postscript RIPs driving drum fed Linotype-Hell imagesetters with inline film processors. Actually, we had two of them running 24-7. So, yes, Quark did (and perhaps still does) modify certain images (TIFFs) under certain conditions (resolution too high) as it spooled to PostScript file.
With over 20 years experience in digital prepress , you pick up a few things. ;-)
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
Why yes I am "that same girl" but hey... it gets you to read them right? Look, while I appreciate the assistance on my terminology, I work for a place where the publisher calls it a "mask head" - so just imagine...
The quality improvements I am attempting to achieve are with the color reproduction at printing. We have gone through several printers and photographers and no matter what I try our photos always look dull and washed out.
But, honestly. I learned a great bit from your response, so it was greatly appreciated!
::heather malone
Your dull washed out photos are more than likely RGB by your description, and when passed through your print suppliers RIP they will end up looking horrendous. Dull and washed out
Making sure images are CMYK is the first check you should make (these are the basics, apologies if you already do that, but I don't know if you know anything about print)
If you are using cmyk, are you applying any custom colour profiles outputting your files using exteme GCR or UCR settings?
living on dreams and custard creams.
I think monkey is on to something here.
If the files you received from your clients are in RGB color space and you didn't convert them into U.S. SWOP Coated (or another appropriate CMYK color space) then you'll want to do that to see a big improvement.
However, if the files you are receiving ARE in CMYK, then they may simply have to be converted into the right kind of CMYK. Lets chat about that later.
Either way, making sure the files you send to your printer are in CMYK is a very important step in any production environment and should never be overlooked. Also, making in-house color proofs on a calibrated proofer and sending those proofs to your printer along with your files helps ensure the printer knows what he's trying to hit.
Let us know what you find out.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
After reading monkeys post more carefully, yeah. What he said. ;-)
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
Well, I receive the images from the freelance photographers as RGB, but then I run an action in Photoshop to convert them to TIFFs that are CMYK.
I am about to check the color profile settings as explained by Monkey -
"If you are using cmyk, are you applying any custom colour profiles outputting your files using exteme GCR or UCR settings?"
And I would love to be able to print color proofs for the printer, but it's just not in the cards...
::heather malone
Please excuse my ignorance, when discussing the "colour profile outputting" is that referring to the menu choices in the "output" section once I am exporting my PDF? If so, what are the best choices for optimum printing?
::heather malone
There are a few things here to consider.
We need to make sure to open the RGB file in the correct profile. Open photoshop, and make sure your color settings look like this...
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
Then, open your RGB image. One of two things will happen.
A) The image opens.
B) A dialog appears.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
If a dialog appears it's either because the ICC Profile embedded in the image does not match the ICC Profile your have in your color settings.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
OR, the image doesn't have an ICC Profile embedded at all.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
In either case you'll want to 'Use the embedded profile (instead of the working space)' Or 'Assign working...'
What you're doing here is explicitly stating which kind of RGB you want the image to appear in. There are a lot!
I'll come back later and explain converting over into CMYK. In the meantime, experiment with this!
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
I don't know you mr. caoimghgin, but you are incredibly helpful!
::heather malone
Sorry I was running out of time. Now, once you've opened the RGB image according to the steps described above you'll want to convert in CMYK. This is how you do it....
Photoshop menu Edit --> Convert to Profile...
Make the dialog box look like the attached image.
Then, just to be safe, save it as a TIFF or a PSD (just because this eliminates the possibility of the PDF settings in Photoshop modifying your image upon save).
Now, I'm using US Web SWOP Coated, but your printer may want you to use something different. You'll want to find out what they use and substitute accordingly.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
That's all I got. Tell us how it goes.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.