Printing from InDesign is OK but from PDF is Grainy

[banterbizarre]

Hi,

I really hope someone can help, I'm at my wits end!

I have InDesign CS2 Standard running on OS X. I have a document with only one colour (Pantone 451). When I print it from InDesign it is a nice solid colour. However, the printer I work with needs the file in PDF and when I export the file to PDF, the solid colour comes out grainy when I print the PDF file.

I've tried so many things (literally spent a day working on this) and I just can't fix it. The worst part is, I'm just starting out as a graphic designer and this project is for a client who could offer me a lot more business in the future, but if I can't fix it, I can't take on any more work.

Please please help me,


James

 

[eugenetyson]

The PDF file will be fine for the printer.

It's just that your printer you're printing off probably doesn't handle Postscript too well.

When you make a PDF it's a postscript file. With all the postscript code in it. Acrobat is just a way of breaking down the information and displaying it on screen. However, if you try to output this file to a non-postscript printer then you will see degradations in colour and image quality.

What printer are you printing from, some kind soul may be able to link you up with postscript drivers for your particular printer.

 

[banterbizarre]

Thanks for that, but...

We have tried installing new postscript drivers on our printer (Canon Pixma iP4200) and this still hasn't been able to resolve the issue. Also, when we send the pdf to the Print shop owner, it prints out the same at his end (grainy). He had a look under the print magnifier at his shop and he says he can see the CMYK process colours through the Pantone 451 and this is what is making it appear grainy. He suggested turning off the process colours in the print option of the pdf file and running with just the Pantone colour, but we are unable to figure out if this is possible.

Hope you can help as we are tearing our hair out here!

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[eugenetyson]

Well this is a simple one. Now that all the information is here.

Ok:

When you are making the PDF go to Output,

Then in Colour Conversion, select None

What's happening here is that you're making a pdf that is being mapped to a printing profile. You need to check the INK MANAGER here too, make sure that the Spot Colours aren't been mapped to CMYK.

You can select no colour conversion, then all the colours remain as they are, including RGB's, so for this setting it's imperative to ensure that all your images and swatches are CMYK, and that you have proper Spot Colours setup where needed.

You should double check your swatch spot colour, by double clicking, and ensuring that the colour is in fact a spot colour.

 

[jmgalvin]

You did not say what export setting you're using. Make sure to use the Press setting. The default press setting should work just fine.





Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[eugenetyson]

But the default press setting won't work if the swatch isn't set up as a Spot Colour.

Or if the objects that are coloured are even coloured using the swatch. It's possible to have a colour used in the document that isn't a swatch.

All the objects that's supposed to have this spot colour used need to be double checked and double checking of the spot colours, and to make sure that the colours aren't been mapped to cmyk somehow, perhaps by accidently changing the defaults of the press setting to map all colours to CMYK. It's accidently easy to do all these without realising it.

 

[jmgalvin]

The original poster said he was getting grainy output at print - often caused by too low resolution which you often get at the "print" setting.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[eugenetyson]

He had a look under the print magnifier at his shop and he says he can see the CMYK process colours through the Pantone 451 and this is what is making it appear grainy. He suggested turning off the process colours in the print option of the pdf file and running with just the Pantone colour, but we are unable to figure out if this is possible.

This would suggest that the spot colour is being converted to CMYK and not too low a resolution. Grainy is a loose term, I've heard it used before to describe a screen.

But then again, it could be the resolution. That's always a posibility.