Image quality lost with Indesign?--PLEASE HELP! 1

[rachelatcms]

my company recently switched from Quark to InDesign, and I'm LOVIN it — with the exception of one major problem-our ads are losing quality when we print.
My staff builds the ads (text and all) in Photoshop, then I import them into the book...
We have been saving the ads as .tiffs, and then placing them in-but we've noticed since we switched to Indesign, when we print, we lose quality. The text and images seem pixelated. ALl ads are at least 300 DPI and CMYK, but it still seems fuzzy. I've tried maybe saving the ads as photoshop .eps as well, but that doesnt seem to make any difference. I understand the lo-res preview within the program, but it shouldn't be PRINTING fuzzy as well...
Has anyone encountered this? Is there some setting within InDesign that I need to adjust that Im not aware of?
Thank you so much for your hlep!

 

[rachelatcms]

ALSO, when we print, we print to .ps, then pdf it-and we use our printer's settings, which are pretty HIGH quality...

 

[jmgalvin]

Before printing make sure to preflight the thing

On the print settings - Graphics/Image/Send Data, make sure that All is selected. On the Advanced/Transparency flattener, make sure that High is selected.

After you select Postscript on the print window make sure to use either Adobe pdf or your printer's (latest update) ppd as the PPD. I'd suggest starting with Adobe PDF as the PPD. You might do just as well using the Press pdf export in Indesign.

On the Indesign Edit menu make sure that Trasnparency blend space is cmyk if everyting is cmyk.

300 dpi, or even 600, is pretty low for text, especially fine text. The base resolution for press quality pdf in Distiller is 2400 dpi. The flattener resolution for high quality in Indesign is 1200 dpi for text.

If you want to view at full image quality on screen, select View menu/Display preformance/High. You can set this as default in Indesign prefs/display performance.







Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[rachelatcms]

Thanks for hte help. I tried going in and saving the ads as 600, and 1200 dpi, and the text still looks fuzzy at printout. Im afraid to mess with the ppd/distiller settings, since they are the settings our printer gave to us to use.
Any other suggestions? Short of redoing ALL of our ads in Indesign (which id REALLLLLLLY like to avoid-we have a LOT of them), nothing else seems to be solving hte problem

 

[jmgalvin]

You did not say if you checked the print settings - Graphics and transparency flattener before printing postscript. That has nothing to do with Distiller settings but can have a profound effect on the quality of the print. That's especially true with graphics/send all data.

You also did not say if you tried a direct press quality pdf export from ID. That almost always gives a fine result. Try that with one page and see how it looks. If ok, send it to the printer and ask them what they think.

You should also check that PPD. If it's old, it might not work correctly with a newer operating system and newer pdfs.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[Ekwoman]

If possible, you want to place native Photoshop (.psd) files into InDesign, as opposed to using a tiff or eps (unless that's what you already have). I would definitely take the suggestion of exporting to a PDF directly from InDesign. If you're using CS2 apps, they all pull the same Distiller files from the same place (the .joboptions files) and you've cut out any errors that may be cropping up in the creation of the PostScript file.

It might just be that the RIP device cannot handle the file when it comes time to flatten it...especially if there is transparency. Also as suggested, make sure to use the High Res transparency flattener setting if printing direct from InDesign. You won't have a flattener choice if you're exporting to Acrobat 5 or above (they handle transparency, so flattening doesn't happen until the PDF is RIP'd)...if you choose Acrobat 4, the PDF will need to be flattened and this is where you would choose the high res version. By choosing version 4, you've flattened the file and you take out any problems on the RIP end (or at least you would see those problems before going to print). Good luck!