Achieving edge crispness in pdf

[adrial79]

Whenever I place an illustrator (.ai) file into InDesign and pdf the page, everything shows up crisp and detailed EXCEPT for the placed .ai files. I have .tiff files and, of course, text as well and they look fine at any magnification. When I zoom in completely, then the .ai art looks okay, but at any other smaller magnification, they look blah.

I put examples up on my website, since it will be easier to SEE what I'm talking about instead of me trying to explain it. For how it is supposed to look, please go to

http://www.unc.edu/~adrial/wal.fullcal.jpg

Look at the little icon on the left side (the talking head). Its edges are very crisp.

Now, please take a look at the pdf at

http://www.unc.edu/~adrial/wal.brochure.pdf

see how the icons are all blown out?

What's going on?

I thought it may be better if I opened the .ai file in photoshop and saved it as a psd and then placed it in ID, but then the icons look blown out on screen in ID even though they look a little better when I pdf the document. Will the pdfs still print out crisp on paper when I send this off to the printers even though they look blown out on screen?

This is my first post ever on this website. I have come here numerous times to get answers and have found them. You guys are very helpful cats. I would really appreciate some knowledge on this subject. Thank you very much in advance for your help!

 

[lvixen]

which settings are you using to create your pdf? Are you sending the pdf's for printing? Or is it for posting on the web? If it's for printing, are you using the printing pdf style? If it's for the web..maybe just do a custom setting a little higher than the 72dpi default. Maybe that will work.

 

[jimoblak]

One of your problems may be that you are looking at the PDF with Acrobat 4. Acrobat 4 had problems rendering clean (aka 'smoothed') vector lines. If you are using Acrobat 5, check Edit>Pref>Display and select smooth 'Text', 'Art' and 'Images'. You should be able to install the free Acrobat Reader 5 alongside an existing full version of 4.

If you only need to send a PDF to the printer, choose the 'press' setting when exporting. You can bump up the PDF version compatibility for Acrobat 5 so that the transparency flattener is not needed. If you have other intentions for the PDF, let us know and we'll offer more ideas.

The vector art on your page looked fine on Acrobat 5 except for some issues with transparency flattening. I noticed frame borders in the blue boxes (ex: lecture, special event, workshop). This can be eliminated by exporting for Acrobat 5 and making sure that you are using a uniform color model in your document...

It appears that this is a 2 ink piece. Avoid spot colors in AI files. See the read_me.txt file that came with ID for a hidden 'known issue'. Use EPS files for vector art with spot colors. AI should only be used for plain CMYK art.

- - picklefish - -

 

[adrial79]

Thank you so very much for your responses. I've always been unclear on the whole part that comes after the actual creation, like prepress and such. I've just done stuff for college that never required me to interact with a printer, so any solutions to common problems you could impart to me regarding prepress would be so much appreciated.

I'm ultimately going to be sending this off to the printer in pdf form and then using this for my portfolio on my website. So I'll just save the one for the printer in the press setting and the one for online pdf I'll save it on the screen setting. Got it.

Now, Jimoblak, on this uniform color model stuff ... I used the color sliders to adjust to the same color blue when I was in Illustrator and InDesign. Would this not be using the same "color model" or will I actually have to use a specific Pantone color for all? I was under the impression that I would be able to tell the printer the base color blue and he would be able to tell through the pdf whether I adjusted the tint to lighter or darker. Is that an incorrect assumption? Also, for the little icons (that I created in Illustrator), I placed .ai files. You're saying that the color will be off if I don't use .eps files instead? Even though I'll ultimately just be making a pdf for the printer? If I do end up having to replace the color, is there a shortcut for making these sorts of color changes or will I just have to do it the "old fashioned way:" click on each item and switch the color then replace all of the .ai files with .eps with the "relink" button? (I'm brand new to InDesign, by the way, in case it wasn't obvious by now -- I worked with just Quark through my school career).

Thanks again. I appreciate your time. You're really a great resource for me.

 

[jimoblak]

You only have problems with color if you are using a 'blue' created from a combination of the CMY&K inks in the color sliders. If the blue is simply 'cyan' or a pantone color there should not be a problem.

I should have clarified the color matter in AI files: The bug is only in AI files with spot color gradients. If you are not mixing spots in a gradient, then there is no need to convert to EPS. The thing that caught my eye was the visible frame borders for the symbols in the light blue inset boxes. This may have been caused by a spot color gradient in the AI files... or it may simply have been that you did not export for Acrobat 5.

- - picklefish - -