There are plenty of prepress preflight profiles out there with numerous rules and tests based on very questionable assumptions and bad technology. I used to use PitStop but needed to upgrade it after a system upgrade and switched at that point since I already had Acrobat. Chuck, with regards to using Acrobat Preflight for PDF files submitted by advertisers, the real question is what are you looking for?
What do you consider problematic? Preflight, whether the built-in Acrobat Preflight or third party products, can only look for what you build profiles for them to look for. First example — preflight profile that fails a PDF file that has images with resolution less than dpi.
In fact, you may get worse results. Second example — preflight profile that detects and fixes any hairlines of less than 0. Conceptually this sounds safe, but consider vector artwork highly scaled down. Many of the lines scale down to far less than the 0. However, if you convert all such line widths to 0.
In other words, depending upon the situation, it is better to let the lines fade to effectively nothing if what is more important is the overall shape and the fill colors of the objects. I am not going to discourage your use of Preflight, but use it prudently and avoid arbitrary automatic fixes that can cause more harm than good.
And ironically, visually eyeballing a PDF file can sometimes a much better job of preflight than any available preflight automation. I like what was mentioned before and is worth repeating: Always ask your printer what they want from you! Your alternatives are to either 1 provide what they request and hope for the best or 2 take your business elsewhere where you have more confidence in the workflow. You have no idea how many cases come to me via the Adobe forums and privately that get traced to such dodgy workflows!
So if an RGB workflow is preferable and even recommended by Adobe, then why are RGB images flagged by default during packaging of files? I have often submitted a FR to the InDesign team to change this behavior without success. This warning could be turned on as it could be turned off now , if a user wants it in a specific document profile. But I doubt that the majority of ID users is aware about the possibility to use a self defined profile. Hi David!
Type outlined, raster background and only paper white or CMYK vectors overtop. One page at a time. Some still follow these workflow even today. Yaroslav, your story gives me a stomach ache. Please join us in the 21st century! By the way, thank you for you recent posts on InDesign color managment, that was very handy. So many important dialog boxes within InDesign have murky descriptions! Especially in the print and export dialog boxes.
Terseness allows them to avoid the problems of translating long English text strings into much longer non-English text strings. When you hover over the Colour Conversion drop down menu, look at the Description tip at the foot of the window… The devil is in the details! Again, nothing is ever simple with colour management — even when you think you know how things work!
You spend too long looking at a screen — The colour printing process is about percentages of gloopie ink covering thin sheets of dead tree!!!! I was surprised at how little was known about RGB workflows under many designers, young and old. Direct download link for the Dutch presentation on real use colourmanagement, as mentioned above from my blog:. I think the RGB workflow can be used for your everyday print workflow.
So bottom line for me is: use RBG workflow all the time, except for selected projects where color output requires special attention. And I choose this on a project per project basis, judging which ones require some extra attention.. Their online preflight software throws an error if I use RGB images.
We do spot-color proofs on all of our photos, and it is very rare that we do not make color-corrections after proofing CMYK conversion converted at the vendor, in-RIP on their Epson. Also, they flatten all the layers before CMYK conversion — which is needed because we have a ton of adjustment layers and converting to CMYK never looks good without flattening first. I prefer to convert to CMYK first so that my layer files can stay layered, rather keep layers than have a flat RGB file that will convert nicely.
Bret, why are you not using the Proof Preview? This gives you the same impression as you would have converted your image to CMYK before? I would strongly recommend not to flatten images before placing them into InDesign. Because I use Layers and Layer Compositions in InDesign, sometimes I use the very same image on several places with different compositions. If someone would have the idea to flatten that image and to convert it to CMYK all instances of that images would become destroyed.
By the way, a flattened image would loose all transparency applied to it including all effects and alpha transparency.
Do you really want it? I do use Proof Preview and Overprint preview. I should point out that many of our photos come from the field in Africa and other remote locations and are often taken by non-pros and need a lot of help. I think an RGB workflow is efficient for those who have high-quality, well-exposed images. I keep my layered files and I place them unflattened. Just like Dwayne… However rereading the column I see that David is recommending RGB this for those using a PDF workflow, not the case alway for me due to the need for last-minute text and layout changes made at the printers.
But we spend hours adjusting various colors in hot-spots,deep shadows, faces, clothing, foliage, etc. Quebecor and RR Donnelly insist on it.
And we use their PDF export settings that they provided. And personally, all of this is opinion anyway. If you send PDF according their specification, it has not to bother them where the conversion takes place. What you are doing is an useless amount of additional work which can be avoided without any loss of quality. It makes no difference in the result if you convert your images in Photoshop or later upon PDF export when the settings are the same.
This is not just a matter of opinion. This it NOT about me being inefficient. They make the rules—not us. And the comparison to using paragraph style sheets has nothing to do with it.
But so you know—we use them extensively. Except in the situations that we mentioned, or have come up in the comments. Dwayne, ther was no one slamming against you. You are confusing the requirement what the printer gives you for the PDF with the requirement how InDesign needs the files. There can be a huge difference between the input, what to import into InDesign and the output, what the PDF will be. What would be the best to place in InDesign? But if you would use CMYK images and flattened PDFs X-1a or X-3 or EPS you would not even be able to satisfy the second printer and even the first one could get problems with your files if they have a different output profile or a higher ink level than permitted because someone did image adjustment in a CMYK file instead of a RGB file.
What you said about UK is a slamming. I would not say that Britain is behind or advanced compared to Europe. Or does it need to be resaved as a TIF, etc.? Any file type which is supporting color management. Who decides who is a professional? Now, it may be that the printers are at fault. Every professional will tell you that you should deliver a PDF according the requirements of the printer. That is not the topic here, as long the printer requires a PDF. In Photoshop or later in InDesign?
Tell us name and facts! OK, the printer is Lightning Source. This may be nuts but it is what is imposed upon me. They have some well misunderstanding statements there. They require not to include an icc profile but accept X-3 which will include a profile anyway. So you have to know their profile to convert any file, either from InDesign or from Photoshop to their profile. Your workflow does not reflect any professionality.
Why are you exporting to X-3? I hope you export and are not printing the PDF. Heated debate and touching on what I expierence during my Colour Management training sessions: lots of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge. Leran to work with a colour managed RGB workflow and correct icc profiles and you will never have to go back to the older methods.
The problem is many times in the understanding how it ectually works, missing profiles, wrong settings. As said before: keep it in RGB, check which images may have a missing profile if so, check with softproof and try changing the profile for the inage directly in InDesign by assigning! And why do adjusting in a smaller colour space than is needed? From my own expierence: all the big publishers here in the Netherlands like Sanoma!
They publish do digital media tablets! And yes, on print time it goes to CMYK for some magaines but other magazines are managed by the printer itself. Hardly any, yes sorry: professional! What about sharpening, unsharp mask? Is that not best applied to an image in the output color space?
What really is an issue is that of the image resolution. If you significantly downsample an image either during PDF export or at the RIP for which significant sharpening has been applied , the effects of the sharpening may be either reduced or eliminated as bits are removed.
If you significantly upsample an image at the RIP for which significant sharpening has been applied, you risk the possibility of getting image artifacts where the sharpening took place, often appearing as white or black gullies.
Thus, in general, problems associated with sharpening being lost or exaggerated at the RIP due to resampling is much less of an issue today. No, David, I am not missing the point. Thanks, Wilhelm. Otherwise it seems fine. I wonder if some of the frustration is because printers are requiring the live InDesign files as well as the PDFs? Some printers would get better files if they were a bit less muddle-headed about what they wanted.
Before PDF, sending native files was common. Whether it was a year book with s of photos or a company brochure, or a poster or a business card. Nothing was ever setup for production. Even to this day I get incorrect PDFs, incorrect sizes, incorrect bleeds, etc. My life has been made much easier by the allowing of RGB photos to be placed and converted on export to the CMYK space that is needed for printing.
I must say this has been a fascinating discussion. So much so, that I feel a need to come out of the shadows and add my two cents. Sorry in advance about the length. As a prepress type, I was all set to dismiss that suggestion as utter lunacy.
But taking a step back, and looking at this frm a pure workflow scenario, it makes a lot of sense. I can see a workflow built around the InDesign document as the jump off point for creating multiple files for different output purposes. Having said that, this workflow does come with caution in order to properly manage expectations in a print environment.
Allowing the export to convert the RGB images to CMYK produces a very thin weak black channel, especially in the highlight to midtones. All the color data in those color values are carried by the CMY. This becomes problematic for the printer when attempt to maintain color consistency on press across the sheet flashing , be it sheetfed or web. Any adjustments for one color can throw off the balance for another color. Suddenly, your onscreen neutral image is shifting to the red, or shifting to the green on press.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge that this issue can still happen if you convert the images to CMYK before importing. However, the weak black be fixed by applying GCR Gray Component Replacement to the images to beef up the black channel and remove the excess CMY out of the shadow tonal range, but flashing is still an issue in the highlights and quartertones.
In PDFx-1a, the flattening process produces a hard cut off between the two colors. The print vendors we work work all accept PDF-x4a. Even with Proof Setup, you still do not get the full value of the conversion on screen.
And if users actually adjusted their monitors to the proper screen settings D50 for print work, people would find it hard to work in such a dark and yellow tone display environment.
So for the customer expectation factor, this is why many printers require designers to convert to CMYK before releasing the files to them. Printers get a bum rap because the file has not been set up correctly for the print output. This is especially true if the designer is working and releasing files by viewing on screen only and does not have access to a color managed high-end output laser printer or ink jet proofer.
At the end of the day, Computer to Plate and Desktop Publishing has been a boom for publishers and designers. I repurposed marketing materials from newsprint to fliers, mailers, inserts, online, billboards, rack cards, etc. Yes, one can effectively perform virtually most targeting and correction in RGB as is done in CMYK provided the system is calibrated and they have the appropriate profile — then easily rinse and repeat for the next medium.
Terry, it is not possible to load in any old profile and edit it via the legacy Custom CMYK interface. This is a long standing misconception that many have. The legacy Custom CMYK engine of Photoshop is highly configurable, however it is not based on any modern, real world printing condition.
Thanks for clarifying, Steven. Thank you for the further clarification Terry. They should provide a custom profile, rather than an out of date default Adobe profile that disregards their ink limit specifications. Sadly the Adobe U. InDesign uses the same color engine as Photoshop.
This is largely up to the user to decide if the outcome dictates applying individual GCR settings or can you get away with applying a single GCR setting to the entire file during export to PDF. Thanks, David. It could save me a lot of time. Peter, if the original condition is U. The tone and gray balance is very slightly different, not enough to really worry about, the press variation will no doubt be greater!
Is there anything else I should know here? Converts colors to the destination profile space only if they have embedded profiles that differ from the destination profile or if they are RGB colors, and the destination profile is CMYK, or vice versa.
Untagged color objects those without embedded profiles and native objects such as line art or type are not converted. This option is not available if color management is off.
Whether the profile is included or not is determined by the Profile Inclusion Policy. Would the elements that are being converted be imported vector elements? Would these imported objects contain an ICC profile that differs from your document or output profile?
I personally prefer to do colour conversions in Acrobat Pro rather than in InDesign, Acrobat Pro offers much finer control and has options to cleanly preserve K only:. Thank you Stephen. Normally I use Acrobat for such operations. I found this article and wanted to give it a try. Indesign suggests U.
Web Coated profile. If I use it, the black color remains unchanged. If I choose a different profile from the list, black is changed.
InDesign suggests nothing, the output profile should be the same as your printer requires. Using it causes the black color remains unchanged. Using other CMYK profile causes that black is changed. What PDF export setting are you using? Acrobat Pro output preview can be confusing at times!
That has caught me by surprise several times in Acrobat. I think this has to do with the setting in the Simulation Profile pop-up menu.
Still need Photoshop to get them into dpi space. But at what size in 72ppi? That is what matters! If you scale them down, resolution ppi increases. In most cases 72 ppi images from clients are shot with at least 6 megapixels and are huge! Oh, and it is ppi, not dpi by the way, dpi are dots, is for print devices….
Linda: Oh yes! You still need Photoshop. You should use photoshop to resample the image to an appropriate resolution, crop, do color adjustments, retouch… nothing wrong with that. John: If you open a high-res image in Photoshop and it says 72 ppi, then you probably do want to change it to ppi or above for print.
This maintains the same information, without change, but distributes it over a smaller area. This is a perfectly fine thing to do! This results in a soft image, nowhere near as good as an image that had been the correct size and resolution to begin with. Better to start with a healthy image, but sometimes your client gives you junk ;-.
Hi, Thank you for this good article. Thank in advance! The simple answer first. If you are starting new imagery, if your target is graphic arts, AdobeRGB is a fairly safe choice. If the imagery will primarily be used in Microsoft Office applications or web pages, sRGB might be safer. Thanks for the article. I knew I was right and my printers were wrong! One of the biggest finnish newspapers… But a little question. Whenever you should or not using RGB images in InDesign is mostly based on the following points : — Do you need to have a precise color in your image?
You know how much it cost to upgrade such system? And you know that the printing field is getting hit in their kidney money constantly. Want to print up to 80 inches wides? Yes, there are software that does the job, but those software are not always compatible with with hardware in place.
Makes me think about software build for Windows Are you ready to pay 1. You might be. Those customers that might be willing mostly have their own print assets to print their stuff. My jobs always have all of those issues. I recently took charge of labels boxes and tubs at a company, from a design agency.
They used complexed images for backgrounds placed. My question is do I just link the RGB. PSD background files to indesign and then add the text, spot colour vector objects, and then export as PDF. I dot want the colour to become muddy or brown. Thanks for you help. Thank you for a nice article. When the preference file is get corrupted then it can starts displaying unexpected errors and behavior when exporting PDF files.
So to fix this issue you have to recreate the preferences. The message you are seeing has nothing to do with the blank PDF. The Hyperlinks panel opens.
Choose PDF as the option. Then, you can use editing tools on InDesign to help edit. The Save As dialog box is displayed. Gert Verrept Member. February 22, at am To export an PS-file and then destill it, is wery, wery old-school ….
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Keep me signed in. Log In. Sign In. Username: Password:. You have to be logged in to save. First Name! Please fill out this field. Last Name! Click Save img. Make sure you settings match the screen shots that follow img. B-D The last four tabs can be left with default settings. Click Export img. Click Save. Too many adjustments can lead to improper image prints as you constantly tweak the driver options and other settings.
With native files there are a lot of variables, which is why Print to PDF is recommended if you are at all concerned with print quality.
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