[Pedro]

Hi everyone,

I know it's a bit cheeky only having just joined and everything, but was needing a hand with optimising my PDF compression for sending adverts to mag publishers. for newsprint my settings seem to be fine (as colour run tends to hide artifacts well), but when it comes to glossies sometimes they look a bit jaggy. We try to keep the filesize down because we email copy, but if any of you could put me right I would be most grateful!

Current settings are:

Adobe 5.0 (PDF 1.4) Compatibility

Res: 600 DPI

and my images are downscaled to 300 if over 450ppi (both colour and G/S) with the image quality as jpeg medium.

Are there any better settings?


Oh, and hello everyone by the way!

[Maerk]

Don't drop the image quality setting at all. The file size will remain pretty low (a few megs should be ok for email?) but changing it below high/maximum will make a nasty mess.

And hi

[steveb]

High quality jpeg settings and 300 dpi should be fine. No reason for any jaggies to appear.
I've noticed that creating PDFs in Distiller results in very much smaller file sizes than producing them directly from PS. I've run into publishers who demand that the Distiller program is used!

[Maerk]

yeah distiller is ze useful, or used to be, now i just run everything out of indesign if in doubt and that seems to do the trick for me.

[Herr Kurm]

You can get some ugly mess on the final printouts if you use exporting PDF-s directly from PS, ID or AI. If you want to be absolutely sure that you dont cock anything up use Distiller, my local printers usually say that printing from a PDF that was created in ID or something else without distilling it is on your own expence if anything fucks up.

[cocknose]

there is always font problems when you export straight out of distiller...

and when you export to pdf when there is a pdf ADVERT already in the ps then it really screws things up!!
I would always run a ps through distiller!!!

[John Good]

In Acrobat, there is a strange function :

File > Reduce File Size

Don't know what it does, as it changes nothing but the file size...

[steveb]

It compacts an old PDF file using the latest Adobe compression algorithm. The can easily shrink by 75%! The first time I used the new Distiller version, I was certain that I had done something wrong because instead of getting the 90k PDF I expected, it was only 24k. Took me half an hour to convince myself there was nothing wrong!

[John Good]

Originally Posted by steveb

Took me half an hour to convince myself there was nothing wrong!

ha ha ha ! still I'm not convinced... ;-)

[Pedro]

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to have to pinch the activation from my colleague, he's got distiller :P

Doesn't the Distiller run through PS as a plugin though? *scratches head*

[Pedro]

Just as a return to this, I've come across this gem- thought it might be helpful / throw up a couple of issues- wubwubwub.pass4press.com.

I personally think it's a good thing to have a benchmark approval system for copy submission, although it does seem more than slightly cheeky that you have to use the expensive products to do it. Only got PS? Buy Distiller/InDesign. Ouch, not good for the recently graduated/shoestring designers.

Thoughts / opinions?

[steveb]

You're absolutely right. Pisses me off too that I send a pdf to a printer who then bitches at me because he wants a small pdf.
Adobe should damn well incorporate Distiller technology into PS and ID too. The apps cost enough as it is and they don't have to pay anyone to lease the technology.
Actually, the entire "produce PDFs via another application" is both inconvenient and outdated.

[ropeyjoe]

I have always just used print>>Adobe PDF straight from photoshop. ('Adobe PDF' appears as one of the printers)

As long as the pdf setting is at X/1a I never have a problem. I always thought this went through distiller because if you look in the processes (task manager) suddenly the process eating up all the memory is one called "AcroDist"

My printer, who is generally fussy about PDF specs told me that as long as its to x-1a standard, there'll never be a problem.

If I'm designing an A4 advert, I set the paper size to A3, which leaves loads of room for the bleeds and crop marks etc.

An average full page colour advert usually ends up at about 2 or 3 mb, which is fine for email. (Though oddly if you design the same advert using Quark Xpress the PDF ends up smaller. Weird. Must be the layers etc)

[cocknose]

Originally Posted by ropeyjoe

I have always just used print>>Adobe PDF straight from photoshop. ('Adobe PDF' appears as one of the printers)

As long as the pdf setting is at X/1a I never have a problem. I always thought this went through distiller because if you look in the processes (task manager) suddenly the process eating up all the memory is one called "AcroDist"

My printer, who is generally fussy about PDF specs told me that as long as its to x-1a standard, there'll never be a problem.

If I'm designing an A4 advert, I set the paper size to A3, which leaves loads of room for the bleeds and crop marks etc.

An average full page colour advert usually ends up at about 2 or 3 mb, which is fine for email. (Though oddly if you design the same advert using Quark Xpress the PDF ends up smaller. Weird. Must be the layers etc)

How much CRAP written in one message!!!
No one listen to this person please...

[ropeyjoe]

Gosh sorry. I'm no expert. Only saying what i personally have done thats worked ok.

If its wrong info then ok, i dont mind being corrected.

Guess i'll just keep quiet in future

[Limbo]

File > Reduce File Size

Use that all the time for client proofs - but never do it for a printer - just too nervous about the loss of info - I think it use JPEG compression on the images too...

Tend to drop EPS files into distiller set to 'press quality' - usually gets the job done just right.

For larger projects I still tend to hand them the collected Quark files - What's the best practice for ripping PDF's from a large Quark Doc? (and yes we have ID and I'm slowly moving over)