Preserving Vector Text from Photoshop
crhoadhouse (98 points) | Mon, 2006-01-16 01:24"What did you create the business card in?"
"Photoshop!"
I've lived that nightmare many times. Photoshop is a great program, probably my favorite. But a page layout app it isn't. Fuzzy bitmapped 72 dpi text isn't my idea of a good time. However there is a way that a text heavy layout can be done in Photoshop and sent to a prepress tech without them burning you in effigy.
1. Create the document.
2. Add in your text making sure not to rasterize it.
3. Save it as a "Photoshop PDF"
4. In the PDF file format options make sure to check "Include Vector Data" and Embed fonts.
5. This will produce a PDF with embedded fonts that any prepress monkey worth his salt will embrace with open arms.
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Nice tip :-)
- Liam
I'll definitely keep this in mind next time I am creating something in Photoshop that will need to be printed
Thanks. I didn't know that.
Will certainly come in handy, as I'm doing increasingly more work with print.
...but I'm glad to see people sharing such important (if not elementary) information. Now I actually have a question: Are there any DOWNSIDES to keeping everything in PDF format? As far as I can tell, placing images (in InDesign) works 1000X better when the images are all saved as PDF's. This avoids both FONT problems and solves some "jagginess" issues (at least when working with Xerox DC 12 and 250). I started doing this from a page layout standpoint and am not 100% familiar with PS yet, so anyone that could throw this newbie a bone...
In most cases you would want to use a page layout program such as InDesign to layout large amounts of text. However if you are doing a design in Photoshop and it only has a line or two of text it would be more efficient to save it as a pdf with the vector data (text) preserved.
Of course you want to hang on to your layered Photoshop master image in case the client wants changes.
If you are getting less that satisfactory results with pdfs be sure to check that you don't have the image heavily compressed in the pdf options dialog or use LZW compression which is lossless.
Cheers!
Please help!!!
I can't see where I'm going wrong, but for some reason the texts I'm writing in Photoshop are being created bitmapped...
I'm desperate for advice, because I HAVE to get something to the printers tomorrow!
Could be a bad font. Why aren't you doing your text in InDesign?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
When I save as PDF from Photoshop, I am getting a monsterous file size, (21MB PDF). The text seems to be preserved using this method and is searchable, can be read out loud, etc.
When I print using the Distiller the size is more manageable, (1MB PDF). The text is being rasterized, however and is not searchable. I don't know why this is.
"When I grow up, I want to be a little boy." Joseph Heller
So I go to save as a PDF and the include vector data option is not available. The program says "font used with faux bold style cannot be included in vector data." I thought maybe it was just the font type I was using but regardless of whether I use a generic font or something fancy, it still doesn't work. Please help!