better way to offer graphics than via PDF?

R
Posted By
roycebair
Jun 28, 2004
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426
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I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or format? (about 10% of my customers are on Mac, the rest are on Windows). I used to provide this graphics only in a raw JPEG format, but many of my customers complained that they didn’t know how to use the images in making greeting cards and note cards. Here’s an example of what I’m now offering:

http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/RLIT0169_note.h tml http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/ga.html

Royce

P.S.
I’m making the PDF’s using Photoshop
Related Tags
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GP
Gene Palmiter
Jun 28, 2004
OK….lets pick this apart….

"royce_bair" wrote in message
I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or

Yes…this is the best format. A PDF is automaticaly compressed so you get the best image with speedy downloads.

format? (about 10% of my customers are on Mac, the rest are on

Doesn’t matter….that is the point of PDF….cross platform

Windows). I used to provide this graphics only in a raw JPEG format,

There is no such thing as RAW JPEG….maybe you meant JPEG.

but many of my customers complained that they didn’t know how to use the images in making greeting cards and note cards. Here’s an example of what I’m now offering:

That can be a problem….if you want to print something….pdf works fine….just do it. But if you want to change it before printing…that is harder. Typicaly your clients will not have acrobat…they will have the acrobat reader. I don’t use the reader myself but I don’t think you can edit text or change as EPS…so that is two solutions they won’t have….what is left is a form. Maybe you can put in a big blank form field….then the customer adds text and prints. They won’t be able to save the changes.

http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/RLIT0169_note.h tml http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/ga.html

Royce

P.S.
I’m making the PDF’s using Photoshop
B
bagal
Jun 28, 2004
Great stuff – I hope your initiative workd really well.

Somehow (see post a tad further down) I feel a $5,000 solution coming on…

das B

"royce_bair" wrote in message
I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or format? (about 10% of my customers are on Mac, the rest are on Windows). I used to provide this graphics only in a raw JPEG format, but many of my customers complained that they didn’t know how to use the images in making greeting cards and note cards. Here’s an example of what I’m now offering:

http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/RLIT0169_note.h tml http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/ga.html

Royce

P.S.
I’m making the PDF’s using Photoshop
T
tacitr
Jun 28, 2004
I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or format?

If the images are scans, PDF is fine.

If the images are line art, then vector EPS is the way to go; a vector EPS can be resized to anything from postage stamp to billboard size with no loss in quality.

—
Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
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H
hoffmann
Jun 28, 2004
(royce_bair) wrote in message news:…
I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or format? (about 10% of my customers are on Mac, the rest are on Windows). I used to provide this graphics only in a raw JPEG format, but many of my customers complained that they didn’t know how to use the images in making greeting cards and note cards. Here’s an example of what I’m now offering:

http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/RLIT0169_note.h tml http://www.xmission.com/~tssphoto/vt/g_angel/ga.html

Royce

P.S.
I’m making the PDF’s using Photoshop

Royce,

your docs are images. Simply JPEG with highest quality should be OK, not progressive, RGB. Any program can read them.
PDF (without compression) is professional, but the WORD users cannot embed PDFs in WORD docs.
For a single image there is no benefit packing it in a PDF compared to saving it directly as a JPEG.

Highest quality JPEG means compression ratio 5 to 10. For your custo- mers it´s practically like uncompressed.

Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
MA
mohamed_al_dabbagh
Jun 29, 2004
(royce_bair) wrote in message news:…
I’m offering clipart downloads of vintage guardian angel art from my website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Is there a better format you’d sugget, or is this still the best or most univeral method or format?

Hi!

For professional electronic distribution of images, I’d rather prefer zipped archives. For the great stuff you have in your website, you may make two versions of zipped archive. For IBM users, you may use WinZip and for Mac users use StuffIt (NEVER MAKE THEM SELF-EXTRACTING ARCHIVES). If you have limitations on hosting resources, you may prepare the archive in WinZip format ONLY, and put a link to some website that contains a zip inflator for Mac users. I think this is the most professional way of distributing your clips. If you actually want to use PDF format, you should notice that PDF conversion settings should NOT compress the pictures already you have them in JPEG format on your hard disk using another cycle of JPEG. Rather, use ZIP option to compress them. The zipped archive may also contain some handy files such as EPS Illustrator templates ready to be placed in a desktop publishing software such as InDesign. EPS templates with all necessary trim and folding marks will be great for someone who wants to customize a postcard with less effort.

Hope you all success.

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh
Senior Graphic Designer
SM
Steve Moody
Jun 29, 2004
In article , Mohamed
Al-Dabbagh wrote:

For IBM users, you may use WinZip
and for Mac users use StuffIt (NEVER MAKE THEM SELF-EXTRACTING ARCHIVES). If you have limitations on hosting resources, you may prepare the archive in WinZip format ONLY, and put a link to some website that contains a zip inflator for Mac users.

Mac users will be able to open a Zip file with a current copy of Stuffit Expander (free). Those using Mac OS 10.3 and later will be able to open and create Zip files using the OS itself. Zip is built in.

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