Scan grayscale only for ID

[picsandpixels]

Hello to all from a sunny California. My first day in the tank, so please spare my ignorance:

Used Pagemaker years ago and have basic knowledge of layout and design, but have questions about placing pics in In Design(ID) CS2. Currently, tasked to create a 100 page B&W photo album that will go to offset print. Have scanned all images at 100%@300 dpi/grayscale and will touch up (minor only) in PS, but undecisive to the output extension that is commonly used for ID: tiff,PSD,eps, or what? I used EPS many years ago but need a re-cap on this matter.

Cheers to all!!!

 

[MarcusStringer]

Tiff is your safest bet...use the KISS method.
Keep It Simple Stupid.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[jmgalvin]

Marcus is on the ball here. Use TIFF. To be double safe, don't use LZW compression when you get the Save As tiff window in PS.

I use virtually all tiff for rasters and eps for vectors and have never had a printing problem.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[Eggles]

Marcus and Jim

I'm a little perplexed as to why you are recommending using TIFs and EPSs for placing images in InDesign. One of its advantages is completely seamless integration with other Adobe apps. I always use native Photoshop files (PSD) for raster images and native Illustrator files for vectors. I think using TIFs ands EPSs is a hangover from Quark/Pagemaker days.

 

[MarcusStringer]

I'm thinking of old RIPs which fall over at the mear thought of processing InDesign created files or PDF made from InDesign.

So keeping it as universal as possible would solve any future problems which may crop up

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[Eggles]

Oh well - if you're talking having the files printed on older RIPs... must cramp your style a bit with transparency effects. But are there really problems with printing placed PSDs and AIs in ID docs?

 

[MarcusStringer]

There could be...I haven't had any, I use combos of both, but mostly I use Tiffs and EPS's only through habbit.

But if you don't know where is going to be printed then it's best to keep it as Universal as possible

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[jimoblak]

InDesign can output the PSD the same as the TIFF. It is the same output when flattened through InDesign. Those print service providers that choke on transparency do not understand how to output from InDesign. You can print from InDesign to older RIPs.

I've also used LZW compression on all my TIFFs and have never had a problem.

 

[jmgalvin]

Eggles & Jim

I recommend tiff and eps because they always work. I'm also a creature of habit, so I stick with what I know will print ok.

Since I don't know about the experience level of the person asking the question, nor where he's going to send it for printing, I always recommend the safest method I can think of. My experience with accounts and companies that we work with is that the quality of the in house graphics people had taken a dive. All of our work involves New York City corporations and nonprofits, most quite large. One of the largest banks in the world recently sent me a new logo for print output - a 100 dpi jpeg. One of teh TV networks sent us their logo as a 72dpi jpeg, for print. On other occasions we have seen that the in house people cannot even create simple transparency for the background of a simple graphic. I could cite many more exapmples of this lack of competence at very large organizations I don't know why this is, but it's becoming more common. As such, I follow the KISS principle even more.

The original question was about a scan. We use HP scanners for the small amount of scanning that we have to do anymore - thanks to digital cameras. The HP's will create tiffs and jpegs, but not psds. I assume some other brands are the same.



Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[jimoblak]

I would agree that TIFF is the most ideal. I was only posting to counter the idea that a designer should be careful of old RIPs. You can print a PDF/X1-a to an Acrobat virtual printer to prevent any issues with flattening and CID encoded fonts. This output can go anywhere, even to a 10-year-old RIP.

LZW has been around for over 20 years and is now out of license from UNISYS so any RIP can use it. If a RIP is incapable of LZW files, it is probably incapable of working with INDD files as well.

 

[picsandpixels]

Really appreciate the excellent feedback from everyone! Based on this inoformation, I have a bit of homework myself, and will ask more questions at pre-press.

- Part and parcel to this project is the upsell beyond a simple photo album. My plan is to restore (hand and digitally) the photos, matte, frame and hang for gallery presentation.

In summary, it looks as though I can safely juggle between .tif and .psd and stay within standards.

Great forum - hope I can contribute as well,

Jongaijin