Blog

Some newer RIPs (raster image processors) used to prepare artwork for commercial printing don’t require that transparency in the art be flattened. We covered what transparency flattening is in this posting. For example, Adobe PDF Print Engine RIPs can accept PDF files that contain live transparency.

But when transparent objects must be flattened for PostScript processors in Adobe applications like Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator, occasional problems can occur. To view these potential issues, you can use InDesign, Illustrator, and Adobe Acrobat Pro to view transparency interactions.

In Adobe InDesign, choose Window > Output > Flattener Preview. In Adobe Illustrator, choose Window > Flattener Preview. In Adobe Acrobat Pro, choose Flattener Preview in the Print Production panel. There you can a number of options for previewing transparency issues.

In the example shown, the image is surrounded by a drop shadow (a transparency effect). The type at the upper right doesn’t touch the image, but because it is lower in the stacking order than the image and it falls within the bounding box of the transparency effect, it is affected. If we select Highlight > All Affected Objects in the Flattener Preview panel, it turns pink, indicating that it’s an affected object. This could cause the type to spread (get thicker) when the transparency is flattened.

It’s a best practice when working with transparent objects to put text and thin vector objects above transparency to avoid such problems. In this case, moving the type to a higher layer will solve the problem.

Need help with your print? Talk to a live print expert today: 800-930-7978.

Because PDFs are used for many things, often times you need to figure out the best way to make them smaller. Suppose, for example, you have created a PDF file with a lot of images for a catalog. You’ve carefully prepared a press-ready PDF you can send to the printer.

But you also need to send proofs of the catalog to the client, or to others. You can choose to examine the file size by choosing File > Properties > Description. In the Advanced section, you can see the size is 46 Mb. This is too large to easily send. What do you do?

There are two commands you can use in Acrobat Pro to reduce the size of a PDF. The first one is very simple, but it won’t necessarily give you the best results. In Acrobat 9 Pro, choose Document > Reduce File Size. In Acrobat X Pro, choose File > Save As > Reduced Size PDF. In Acrobat XI Pro, choose File > Save as Other > Reduced Size PDF. It only gives you the option of Acrobat compatibility. It reduces the size to 17 Mb. There are no controls to make it smaller.

The best choice is the PDF Optimizer. It gives you the ability to “audit” the space size to help figure out what’s making the file size large. You have many settings to refine the reduction of size. And you can create settings that you can reuse again to repeat the same process.

To get to this command, in Acrobat 9 Pro, choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer. In Acrobat X Pro, choose File > Save As > Optimized PDF. In Acrobat XI Pro, choose File > Save as Other > Optimized PDF. This illustration shows the Audit Space Usage button has been clicked, and we can see that images are causing the large file size. By using the Downsampling command on the Images panel, you can choose an appropriate resolution. I chose 100 ppi. I brought the file size down to 4.67 Mb!

Need help with your print? Talk to a live print expert today: 800-930-7978.

Adobe Creative Suite applications like Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator support many kinds of transparency. You can assign opacity and blending mode attributes to objects. You can create effects like drop shadows and glows. And you can place graphics from other applications in the PSD, TIFF, AI, and PDF formats (PDF files must be Acrobat 5.0 compatibility or higher) which contain transparency.

For example, in the example from Adobe Illustrator below, there are two circles stacked on top of each other. The top one is selected. The Transparency panel shows that it has an opacity setting of 50% so it is considered transparent. This transparency is considered live transparency because it’s still editable.

Many commercial printers use PostScript RIPs that require the flattening of transparency. The PostScript language they use was written before transparency was supported in artwork. When artwork is flattened objects must be broken into pieces (“atomic regions”) but flattening process attempts to maintain the appearance of the original

In the example below, the objects have been flattened. They are no longer editable, and all of the objects are opaque. (The objects are moved apart to show the pieces of the original.)

Flattening can happen by printing to a PostScript file, or when you export to a PDF file and choose a PDF preset that supports flattening transparency—for example, PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3. We discussed selecting a PDF preset in another blog post.

Need help with your print? Talk to a live print expert today: 800-930-7978.

In my previous two blog posts, I talked about the usefulness of saving PDF files in Photoshop and Illustrator, and how you could choose the best PDF presets.

While the default settings are good for many purposes, there are times when you might want to customize them. I can’t go into all the reasons you might want to do that, but I’ll give you an example.

I mentioned last time that the High Quality Print PDF preset, found in both Photoshop and Illustrator, is good for high-quality printing on desktop printers and proofers.

However, the default resolution is set very high—300 ppi for both color and grayscale images. Many desktop printers don’t require that much resolution, and, if you have a larger image or document, you might want to set that lower.

The way you customize a PDF presets differs somewhat between Photoshop and Illustrator. Here’s the Adobe Illustrator method:

 

 

.

 

 

 

Start with the PDF preset you want to modify. Choose the settings you want to change. Here I reduced the downsampling on the Compression panel to 150 ppi for color and grayscale images. Click the button to the right of the preset. Then name your new preset.

Here’s the Photoshop method:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start with the PDF preset you want to modify. Choose the settings you want to change. Here I reduced the downsampling on the Compression panel to 150 ppi. Click the Save Preset button to the bottom left of the dialog. Then name your new preset.

Need help with your print? Talk to a live print expert today: 800-930-7978.