Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Venting a bit of frustration...  (Read 18146 times)

Phil Indeblanc

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2017
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #20 on: April 23, 2009, 09:14:41 pm »

It maybe an Adobe sw, but it is a different animal from PS.
 From Quark we switched to InDesign for the past year or 2, and very happy. Export to pdf daily CMYK contract proofing PDFx1a files for magazine work. its the standard for Swop press work.
If you are new to it, either read up on specifcally what you need to do and do some tests, or send it out for someone who handles this regularly as a pro. There are many specifics that require a shovel to get at.
Logged
If you buy a camera, you're a photographer...

papa v2.0

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 206
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #21 on: April 24, 2009, 06:32:54 am »

Hi Bernard.

I have been in graphic prepress for a long time. Used Quark and then made transition to Indesign when it first came out. Now use CS3 for all print production, from hi end colour to newspapers. had a lot of teething probs along the way and have resolved most of them ourself.

I would be glad to help, if I can, with any of your issues.

From what i have read, the white lines are , or should be, only in the PDF screen preview, and not in the postscript code. When I produced a final PDF of my thesis, the images had white lines through then when viewed through Mac Preview but not in Acrobat. We used the see this in our newspaper final PDFs but once it got to the rip it printed fine.

One way to produce PDF is to 'print' (via the print dialogue) to a .ps  (postscript) file and then run it through Distiller. This method is still used or favoured by a lot of prepress departments here in the UK.

As for image files we scale images in Photoshop to 110% of final print size at required resolution e.g. 300dpi or 250dpi etc. this ensures that there is optimum down sampling if the PDF is to be compressed. Otherwise we dont compress images for final output. Yes you get big file sizes.
We use a combination of Tiff for images or psd  and PDF for adverts. psd is good because you alter the psd (layer effects etc) on the original and the placed file is updated automatically. Great for adverts.

Dont use png.

The PDF setting came be troublesome if not selected correctly and this depends on output device requirements.

having said that I thing InDesign is the best DTP software I have come across and I have really thrown everything at over the last five or six years.

Fell free to email me.  
Cheers
Logged

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #22 on: April 24, 2009, 06:42:43 am »

Quote from: Phil Indeblanc
It maybe an Adobe sw, but it is a different animal from PS.
 From Quark we switched to InDesign for the past year or 2, and very happy. Export to pdf daily CMYK contract proofing PDFx1a files for magazine work. its the standard for Swop press work.
If you are new to it, either read up on specifcally what you need to do and do some tests, or send it out for someone who handles this regularly as a pro. There are many specifics that require a shovel to get at.

Thanks for the feedback, it appears that the problem is with the rasterization from InDesign or from a .pdf file when the resoluton remains constant along the chain. A natively .pdf workflow seems to be fine.

Cheers,
Bernard

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #23 on: April 24, 2009, 06:44:42 am »

Do you have Acrobat Pro? I ask because it can handle the rasterization with output to PNG (better if your pages have text)

John
« Last Edit: April 24, 2009, 06:56:39 am by johnbeardy »
Logged

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #24 on: April 24, 2009, 09:17:38 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
Do you have Acrobat Pro? I ask because it can handle the rasterization with output to PNG (better if your pages have text)

John,

Yes I do, thanks will give it a try.

Cheers,
Bernard

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #25 on: April 25, 2009, 04:29:25 am »

When you export the PDF from InDesign, choose the option to open in Acrobat. Once in Acrobat, File > Save As, and PNG is one of the choices. This produces a folder with one PNG per page, and they're numbered sequentially. Import the folder into BookSmart, make sure they're sorted by filename, and then use AutoFlow to create the pages in order.

John
Logged

Blad645

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #26 on: April 26, 2009, 07:49:35 pm »

I use In Design and before that Quark for simple pdf type projects through press work. Use tiff files and there should be no problem. either tell me your specific problems here or email me directly and I will help as much as I can
Andy dangelophoto at overlookcom dot com
Logged

Rhossydd

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3369
    • http://www.paulholman.com
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #27 on: June 24, 2009, 02:10:22 am »

You might be interested to note that Blurb now accept PDFs directly for book creation.
They are supplying suitable InDesign templates too.


Bizzarely the beta trial of the service only closed on the 21st June, so many testers still won't have received their test books before the full service has been launched.....

Paul
Logged

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #28 on: June 24, 2009, 05:12:13 am »

But, those who had done so commented that they were happy with them. In any case, this is as much a matter of workflow as it is about book quality.
Logged

Phil Indeblanc

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2017
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #29 on: June 26, 2009, 09:29:50 am »

sounds like you got a handle on things...
Instead of PNG, why not drop in TIF files to generate/export pdf?
Logged
If you buy a camera, you're a photographer...

gmitchel

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
    • http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com
Venting a bit of frustration...
« Reply #30 on: June 26, 2009, 06:33:51 pm »

Quote from: BernardLanguillier
Are people really able to produce books professionlly with this set of tools? Granted, the kind of things I am doing is probably not the most representative workflow, but I would have expected version 6 of InDesign/version 11 of PS to handle well these simple operations.

Cheers,
Bernard

My sharpening eBook was done in InDesign. My comprehensive reviews are done in InDesign.

My relationship with InDesign is tolerate/hate. That's up from barely tolerate / outright despise.

CS4 is a big improvement. If you did not use earlier versions, you have no idea how things like Smart Guides help. A LOT. There is stuff that is still clumsy or difficult. For example, keeping lines of text together to avoid widows/orphans. Or, adding non-breaking space. That's off under a flyout menu on the Character palette. Grrr!

I strongly recommend Deke McClelland's book for Adobe Press on InDesign CS4. It saved me a lot of frustration.

Cheers,

Mitch
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up