Just got my printing, text appears pixilated..greyish. .why?

[Nicole0000]

Hi, just got my print job back.

It is printed on white non-glossy cardstock.

2 things:

1. the text (size 12) looks pixilated at the edges. I pdf'd it at a high resolution (800dpi) and it looks great if I magnified it to 500%. Is it the limitation of the printer here?

2. The text appears greyish. It's not true black. I checked the color and it says 100%,and in my pref, it is setup for print to rich black.

Thanks everyone. This forum is great!

Nicole

 

[jmgalvin]

It should have been exported to pdf at the Press setting which has 2400 dpi for text. 800 dpi for text is way too low.

Low resolution of black text can make it appear gray. Also you have to make sure that you have all cmyk colors and that your pdf is cmyk (default for Press)

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[Nicole0000]

ah..................um..........that sounds interesting!

I will have to check it out jmgalvin!

Thanks.

Nicole

 

[Nicole0000]

forgot to ask.............in the compression choice in the PDF from ID, it is set to 300 pixal for the color, grayscale and 1200 for the monochrome images....

does increasing any of these increase quality or choosing press quality and leaving everything as is the same.

Thanks.

 

[jmgalvin]

Press quality is usually all you need. The downsampling you're referring to in the ID export refers to images, not text.

Again, Press quality export usually is sufficient and provides excellent results.

You also have to be careful with fonts. High quality true type, from major font suppliers will generally be ok, but you're usually guaranteed excellent quality if you use postscript or high qulaity open type. Low quality true type, often available from "free" font download sites can produce bad results.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[apepp]

...increasing the downsampling options upon pdf export from indesign will only take effect if the placed images are of high enough dpi to begin with...

...for example if you place an image at 100% size (300dpi) then export it at a downsampling rate of 300dpi will have no effect on that image...

...if you were to place the same image and scale it down (increase resolution) then the downsampling would kick in upon export to pdf as it sees the image higher than 300dpi...

...scaling that image bigger would decrease the resolution, and so the downsampling wouldn't take effect as it doesn't see it as higher than 300dpi...

...be careful with the greyscale one as if a black lineart greyscale logo for example is placed at 600 to 1200dpi, then you will end up with a 300dpi image in the pdf, this results in a furry edged logo on a high end output device, it would have been crisper at it's native resolution...

...i personally turn this one off and the monochrome one too at work in prepress as i often see these greyscale ones creeping through, lineart images ought to be 1bit bitmaps (monochrome) really at 600 to 1200dpi...

...be careful with text underneath transparency effects too (drop shadows, glows, opacity etc) as they, when flattened, become pixelated and end up looking fatter than the surrounding typeface not effected by transparency. In this situation you need to move the text above the effects...

...make use of the flattener preview palette (window > output) in indesign to seek out what objects are effected by transparency...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...to add...

...you can immediately see a page effected by transparency in the pages palette, it will have a checkerboard icon present...

...treat this icon as a message to investigate page structure before committing to print or pdf...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...rambling a bit off subject now so will shut up...

: )

Andrew

 

[garyheritage]

NEW INDESIGN USER - PREPARING NOOSE ...

I have some documents supplied, they have a black band at the bottom that overlaps a picture and a round cornered box, but when a PDF is created, you can see the items through the black.

The black is set to 100%, 100% Opacity and as far as I can tell there is no transparency on it - but in the Pages Pane it has the afforementioned chequered logo besides the pages.

I have got to get these out ASAP!!!!!!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!


Gary