PS vs. Acrobat printing

Here are tutorials on color management for all the CS line…its a good place to start.

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

—
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com
freebridge design group

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

I am frustrated by the differences I keep getting between PS CS
[I]/InDesign, and Acrobat in trying to proof Grayscale images in PDF format
prior to sending to the printer.

IN other words, what I output (print) from PS or InDesign to my Epson R300 looks right on the screen and in print. My monitor is calibrated and test prints from the Lab Test image that was pointed to here some time ago look fine. I am pretty careful to use the right profile for the paper, and all color management by the printer driver is off. I’ve set to use Black point compensation with Perceptual Intent.

But when I export from InDesign to PDF, and then open the PDF, two things happen: the image appears somewhat washed out and light on the monitor, but it prints darker than I think it should, much darker. OTOH, the printer – a local shop in the SF Bay Area with a good rep.- printed everything too light and little definition, perhaps wholly unrelated to the above. IAE, the job needs to be done over.

I’ve messed with the settings in Acrobat 6.04 to little avail. Proofing on bright white paper, but the one Photopaper I used was also very dark. Could my Export be flawed, (using a slightly modified preset of Press, turning off web option and setting for compatibility with v 4)- or is it settings in Acrobat Prefs or something else?

If they got files in InDesign, would that be inherently safer for more consistent results? The final is B+W booklet, 8.5×11, about 48 pps, on coated stock, don’t know the potential lpi for sure, think maybe 120. The actual lpi seems far less than potential, but don’t know how to measure it.

—
John McWilliams

Gene Palmiter wrote:

Here are tutorials on color management for all the CS line…its a good place to start.

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

I have viewed most of Russell’s tutorials, and regularly use his scripts and a few action, but did not see any reference to the problems with Acrobat that I cited in the o/p.

—
John McWilliams

Where it says "Printing to the Epson 2200" there begins a 4 part tutorial on setting up color settings across the whole Creative Suite with the goal of having the image the same on screen for all programs and printing the same on the Epson 2200. If you have another printer you will have to adapt the specifics of course.

—
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com
freebridge design group

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

Gene Palmiter wrote:

Here are tutorials on color management for all the CS line…its a good place to start.

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

I have viewed most of Russell’s tutorials, and regularly use his scripts and a few action, but did not see any reference to the problems with Acrobat that I cited in the o/p.

—
John McWilliams

Gene Palmiter wrote:

Where it says "Printing to the Epson 2200" there begins a 4 part tutorial on setting up color settings across the whole Creative Suite with the goal of having the image the same on screen for all programs and printing the same on the Epson 2200. If you have another printer you will have to adapt the specifics of course.

That’s something I went by, and it is useful; thanks.

But I am still flummoxed by the settings. It seems as though it is simpler to work in RGB, as most of the grayscale settings don’t allow for no printer driver management.

—
John McWilliams

This was address on
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/2200-bw.s html

Not the exact link…can’t find what I had read…but its something like this. Its better to print BW with all the inks as you will get smoother tones. This can cause casts however and getting neutral can be difficult. —
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com
freebridge design group

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

Gene Palmiter wrote:

Where it says "Printing to the Epson 2200" there begins a 4 part tutorial on setting up color settings across the whole Creative Suite with the goal of having the image the same on screen for all programs and printing the same on the Epson 2200. If you have another printer you will have to adapt the specifics of course.

That’s something I went by, and it is useful; thanks.

But I am still flummoxed by the settings. It seems as though it is simpler to work in RGB, as most of the grayscale settings don’t allow for no printer driver management.

—
John McWilliams

In article <5gctf.518$>,
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

Not the exact link…can’t find what I had read…but its something like this. Its better to print BW with all the inks as you will get smoother tones. This can cause casts however and getting neutral can be difficult.

This is true of inkjet printers. It is emphatically NOT true of printing on a printing press, which the original poster is attempting to do.

Yes, you can print 4/C grayscale images on a printing press; and yes, they can look gorgeous–but if the job is specced as a one-color job, it’s going to be run on press in black, not four color. (Four color printing is a whole lot more expensive.)

When the goal is a printing press, the job should be set up for the way it will be run on press. If it is going to be run in black ink on press, then it is very, very important that grayscale images be grayscale–NOT RGB and NOT CMYK.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

tacit wrote:

In article <5gctf.518$>,
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

Not the exact link…can’t find what I had read…but its something like this. Its better to print BW with all the inks as you will get smoother tones. This can cause casts however and getting neutral can be difficult.

This is true of inkjet printers. It is emphatically NOT true of printing on a printing press, which the original poster is attempting to do.
Yes, you can print 4/C grayscale images on a printing press; and yes, they can look gorgeous–but if the job is specced as a one-color job, it’s going to be run on press in black, not four color. (Four color printing is a whole lot more expensive.)

When the goal is a printing press, the job should be set up for the way it will be run on press. If it is going to be run in black ink on press, then it is very, very important that grayscale images be grayscale–NOT RGB and NOT CMYK.

Thanks, T, what I was going to say insofar as what the printer told me. I made every effort to put all my images into grayscale before I imported them, unlike my first effort where I had to go back and convert quite a few.

The cover has a slight color cast to it, and it was run on a four color press, no doubt, even though it’s all B + W. I am trying to redetermine what happens, and from trying to decipher the quantities of info available in the Preflighter in Acrobat 6. It still looks like the images are in "Separation Color Space (Black)", but perhaps the fonts are in CYMK. (?). It shows that some "images" (presuming they treat the fonts as such) are in four plates.

I guess it might be easier to just turn over the InDesign files rather than make all new PDFs? Are the IDesign files inherently better for commercial press? They sure as heck are easier to proof on my little inkjet, and their losing of contrast when I convert to PDF is still a mystery, although it occurs to me that I haven’t been paying enough attention to my proofing space. What should it be for grayscale images?

—

John McWilliams

Have you considered halftones?

—
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com
freebridge design group

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

tacit wrote:

In article <5gctf.518$>,
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

Not the exact link…can’t find what I had read…but its something like this. Its better to print BW with all the inks as you will get smoother tones. This can cause casts however and getting neutral can be difficult.

This is true of inkjet printers. It is emphatically NOT true of printing on a printing press, which the original poster is attempting to do.
Yes, you can print 4/C grayscale images on a printing press; and yes, they can look gorgeous–but if the job is specced as a one-color job, it’s going to be run on press in black, not four color. (Four color printing is a whole lot more expensive.)

When the goal is a printing press, the job should be set up for the way it will be run on press. If it is going to be run in black ink on press, then it is very, very important that grayscale images be grayscale–NOT RGB and NOT CMYK.

Thanks, T, what I was going to say insofar as what the printer told me. I made every effort to put all my images into grayscale before I imported them, unlike my first effort where I had to go back and convert quite a few.

The cover has a slight color cast to it, and it was run on a four color press, no doubt, even though it’s all B + W. I am trying to redetermine what happens, and from trying to decipher the quantities of info available in the Preflighter in Acrobat 6. It still looks like the images are in "Separation Color Space (Black)", but perhaps the fonts are in CYMK. (?). It shows that some "images" (presuming they treat the fonts as such) are in four plates.

I guess it might be easier to just turn over the InDesign files rather than make all new PDFs? Are the IDesign files inherently better for commercial press? They sure as heck are easier to proof on my little inkjet, and their losing of contrast when I convert to PDF is still a mystery, although it occurs to me that I haven’t been paying enough attention to my proofing space. What should it be for grayscale images?
—

John McWilliams

In article ,
John McWilliams wrote:

Thanks, T, what I was going to say insofar as what the printer told me. I made every effort to put all my images into grayscale before I imported them, unlike my first effort where I had to go back and convert quite a few.

The cover has a slight color cast to it, and it was run on a four color press, no doubt, even though it’s all B + W.

Did you tell your printing shop to run the cover in four colors? Did they charge you for 4/C printing? Was that your goal?

You can print a grayscale image in CMYK on a printing press, and there are advantages to doing so. The results can be quite breathtaking, with good contrast and very high detail (especially in shadows). But there’s a price to pay. Printing a 4/C grayscale image on press without intruducing a color cast is something of an art, and it’s not easy to do. The press operator can adjust the color cast, to some degree, but getting a truly neutral 4/C grayscale is quite difficult.

I am trying to redetermine
what happens, and from trying to decipher the quantities of info available in the Preflighter in Acrobat 6. It still looks like the images are in "Separation Color Space (Black)", but perhaps the fonts are in CYMK. (?). It shows that some "images" (presuming they treat the fonts as such) are in four plates.

Images are pictures. In a PDF, vector type is not considered an "image." If you have images on all four plates, that suggests that (1) the original images are not grayscale (they are RGB or CMYK), or (2) the job settings that were used to create the PDF are wrong.

You can instruct Acrobat to perform color management, to tag images with color profiles, or to convert images from the original color model to some other color model such as CMYK. Unless you have profiled your system, you know what you are doing, and your printer has given you color profiles for his press, it is important to set up your job options so that Acrobat does not change the colors of your images. This means not assigning color profiles, converting to profiles, or changing the image mode.

I guess it might be easier to just turn over the InDesign files rather than make all new PDFs? Are the IDesign files inherently better for commercial press?

Well, not necessarily. A properly prepared PDF is absolutely perfect for commercial printing–the devil, though, is in the details. A PDF not prepared in the right way with the right job settings can create all kinds of problems.

They sure as heck are easier to proof on my little
inkjet, and their losing of contrast when I convert to PDF is still a mystery, although it occurs to me that I haven’t been paying enough attention to my proofing space. What should it be for grayscale images?

Are you using color profiles on your computer? Have you profiled your system? If not, then make sure you’re not inadvertently doing any color management in the PDF.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

In article <TXgtf.84$>,
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

Have you considered halftones?

Do you perhaps mean "duotones"? Any grayscale or color image printed on a press is going to be halftoned.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

tacit wrote:

In article ,
John McWilliams wrote:

Thanks, T, what I was going to say insofar as what the printer told me. I made every effort to put all my images into grayscale before I imported them, unlike my first effort where I had to go back and convert quite a few.

The cover has a slight color cast to it, and it was run on a four color press, no doubt, even though it’s all B + W.

Did you tell your printing shop to run the cover in four colors? Did they charge you for 4/C printing? Was that your goal?

No, no, and no! We had no ads paid for in color, and I suggested saving a few hundred by making it all B+W. I suspect the printer used a different press for the cover as it was heavier stock and they are used to doing color covers a lot.

You can print a grayscale image in CMYK on a printing press, and there are advantages to doing so. The results can be quite breathtaking, with good contrast and very high detail (especially in shadows). But there’s a price to pay. Printing a 4/C grayscale image on press without intruducing a color cast is something of an art, and it’s not easy to do. The press operator can adjust the color cast, to some degree, but getting a truly neutral 4/C grayscale is quite difficult.

Makes total sense to me. It was possibly their oversight that they used CYMK where they needn’t/shouldn’t have.

I am trying to redetermine
what happens, and from trying to decipher the quantities of info available in the Preflighter in Acrobat 6. It still looks like the images are in "Separation Color Space (Black)", but perhaps the fonts are in CYMK. (?). It shows that some "images" (presuming they treat the fonts as such) are in four plates.

Images are pictures. In a PDF, vector type is not considered an "image." If you have images on all four plates, that suggests that (1) the original images are not grayscale (they are RGB or CMYK), or (2) the job settings that were used to create the PDF are wrong.

I’d lean heavily towards (2). My responsibility in any event, and, now rechecking the custom set I made, I am appalled to see that it’s set to convert to CYMK…. although I had made a subsequent one to leave color unchanged. So, you hit another nail square on.

You can instruct Acrobat to perform color management, to tag images with color profiles, or to convert images from the original color model to some other color model such as CMYK. Unless you have profiled your system, you know what you are doing, and your printer has given you color profiles for his press, it is important to set up your job options so that Acrobat does not change the colors of your images. This means not assigning color profiles, converting to profiles, or changing the image mode.

Looks like I blew it on that, although I would have sworn I did not do that- but there are no human gremlins around who snuck into my machine….

I guess it might be easier to just turn over the InDesign files rather than make all new PDFs? Are the IDesign files inherently better for commercial press?

Well, not necessarily. A properly prepared PDF is absolutely perfect for commercial printing–the devil, though, is in the details. A PDF not prepared in the right way with the right job settings can create all kinds of problems.

Yes, I am now a Believer. Exporting a new PDF with a new preset [that doesn’t change the grayscale images to CYMK] (!) now makes the two appear the same on the screen, and the printing proofs on bright white paper look much closer to each other. When printing from Acrobat, there’s no apparent way to turn off Epson color management when printing to plain paper…

They sure as heck are easier to proof on my little
inkjet, and their losing of contrast when I convert to PDF is still a mystery, although it occurs to me that I haven’t been paying enough attention to my proofing space. What should it be for grayscale images?

Are you using color profiles on your computer? Have you profiled your system? If not, then make sure you’re not inadvertently doing any color management in the PDF.

My Mac (G5)’s LaCie tube is profiled via Spyder, and I get good matches out of PS printing using CS color management, color management turned off in the Epson R300 drivers, using the built in Profiles for various Epson papers (plus Gallerie smooth Pearl, but i don’t proof with that.)

The color management you speak of would take place in the Export function of InDesign, no? If not, I’ll need to dig deeper into Acrobat’s settings to see what I can do, but right now the differences are so small that it may be due to the print driver. (?)

—
John McWilliams

Darn it! I do this when I am too tired to work. Obviously I was too tired to do this too!

—
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com
freebridge design group

"tacit" wrote in message

In article <TXgtf.84$>,
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

Have you considered halftones?

Do you perhaps mean "duotones"? Any grayscale or color image printed on a press is going to be halftoned.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html