printing jpgs in indesign

[7sketches]

i need help big time. i'm designing a 50 page catalog, and since i don't know how to use indesign, i did the entire thing in photoshop.

my files are huge! what i was thinking of doing was making a 300 dpi jpeg of my photoshop files and dropping them into indesign, and later export them as a pdf.

would the quality of print be good if i do it this way? what's the difference between printing a 300 dpi jpg vs. a pdf?

thanks

 

[apepp]

...layouts in photoshop are not really recommended due to rasterization of text/body copy...

...the only way to preserve text as clean text/vector from photoshop is via photoshop eps with vector option applied in the save dialog or save to pdf from photoshop, text is then preserved as vector...

...it won't be preserved however if you have used 'faux' styles in the photoshop character palette (faux bold, faux italic etc), these end up rasterized...

...also note that you can't open a photoshop eps file back in photoshop without rasterizing the whole thing...

...a photoshop pdf can however be opened without rasterizing so long as the preserve photoshop editing option is enabled in the save as pdf dialog...

...in your case, whether it is a jpeg from photoshop or a pdf from indesign, then you won't gain any quality benefits, so depending on your pdf export settings (from indesign) with regard to compression (no downsampling at all) quality will be the same as the jpeg format (jpeg is a raster format)...

...other than starting from scratch again, i would advise saving from photoshop as pdf (so long as 'faux' styles haven't been used)...

...using acrobat pro you can then combine the pdf files into one and run an optimization under the advanced menu to see if the file size can be reduced if required...

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...it is also worth mentioning that magazines/catalogues/brochure/books required the total number of pages divisible by 4 so the actual product can be bound together...

...so you will likely need 52 pages or 48 pages, plus or including 4 page cover section...

...this rule doesn't apply though if your final binding method is wirobound or some other form of loose leaf binding, in which case you will either have 50 single sided sheets or 25 double sided sheets...

Andrew

 

[kdubbie]

this is something I do everyday. And you are correct, The best way to create your Album in to save each photo that you want to use as a non-compressed, non-layered CMYK Tiff file(I only say TIFF format over JPEG, because there is less room for error, although JPEGS 9 out 10 times work fine)in photoshop and "place" them into indesign. Write all the text in Indesign

A note on saving images. Depending on how you get the images into photoshop, you never want to resize an image larger then 10%, if you scan an image in at 300dpi 5"x7", dont think it will look as good if you resize it to 8"x10" or something like that.

And once you create the entire Album in Indesign you are ready to Export to PDF. Please note, that you should always ask your printer for their PDF-preset specs. There are a lot of printers out there with Top of the line RIP programs and some with not so much. Any worthwhile printer will have specs to give you. And they DEFINATELY wont mind if you call them and ask for specifics on how to set it up. (in fact a lot printers would prefer that someone call and ensure the correct set up, then to send them a file that is filled with errors)


Usually anything over 30 pages, in addition the PDF, I will also package and zip the entire indesign file and send them everything.