Blurry Graphics

[DrMindbender]

I want to use just one background image for all my pages and it doesn't have to even be high quality. I mage a full page gift certificate and it is black and white. I made it in illustrator and can print it out just fine and it looks great. But when I place it (tif, jpg, or .ai) in pagemaker it looks awful and prints out just as bad. I am wondering how I can put a background graphic in pagemaker without it losing quality. Anybody out there know?

 

[viol8ion]

If it is a vector graphic, your best bet would be to save it as an EPS (will look bad in PM on screen but willprint just fine) but the drawback is that you can only print to a PS Printer if you use EPS.

If you want to use a raster image, then save it as a TIFF. JPGs and AI are not recommended for a variety of reasons. If it is a line drawing then you will need 1200 DPI res, not 300, for best clarity. Save as B&W bitmap in TIF at 1200 for best results. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[DrMindbender]

Hey thanks violation. I'll try that. I have one other thing. This may be a dumb question, but how do I know if my printer is a PS printer? I believe I have an HP 832c. And what exactly does that mean if it is a postscript printer?

 

[viol8ion]

print a test sheet.. if it has the adobe trademark then it is PS (postscript), or it may be a PS clone which usually works... I think most HPs are PS clones When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[jimoblak]

You can get around the PostScript printer issue by making a PDF instead of printing. The PDF can be printed from Acrobat to either PCL or PS printers (that's all of them).

 

[viol8ion]

A PDF placed as an image into PM will still look pixelated or blurry. And EPS converted to PDF, as you say will print properly on any printer, provided the doc was set up prpoperly. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

viol8ion

Re: If you want to use a raster image, then save it as a TIFF.....If it is a line drawing then you will need 1200 DPI res, not 300, for best clarity. Save as B&W bitmap in TIF at 1200 for best results.

This explains why I was having problems with AI line drawings I was placing as TIFs in PM. I was saving them as 300dpi.

But then I tried placing the AIs (V7) directly into PM (V7) and they were SOOO much better I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place. (well, yes I do actually - I wasn't printing them to a postscript printer). But the funny thing is, I DID print them to a non-PS printer - and they printed fine! I always thought you couldn't print AI graphics on a non-PS printer.

Any comments?

 

[Eggles]

I meant to say - the problems were that the lineart was not printing very clearly when I used 300dpi TIFs of the AI graphics. Now I understand what I should have used.

 

[jimoblak]

Some of the newer non-postscript printers can print EPS graphics well. Some of it involves the printer drivers and some involves the design software. InDesign is very forgiving of non-PostScript printers.

When in doubt, export your PageMaker document to PDF and print from Acrobat.

 

[Eggles]

I don't know if the non-PS printer I was using was in the 'newer' category (it's a Lexmark Optra) but I was still very surprised at how well it printed the AI drawings.

And I know that creating a PDF is the normal way to go with trying to print postscript-type graphics to a non-PS printer, but this was a quick proof I wanted of the layout to see how it looked. And also why I had originally converted the AIs to TIFs.

And how I wish I had InDesign!

 

[afral]

Try this: When placing a graphic press SHOW FILTERS. Up the preview resolution to 600dpi. Non postscipt printers print the preview. Most of the previews are set at 72dpi. The file will take a while to place and will be rather large but the result will be appealing. Let me know how this works out. Let freedom ring!