Postscript then distill = pdf 1.3??

[Exploded]

Hello All,

I am running into some problems with my rip failing on a few pdfs. What seems to get them through is if I take the original pdf open in acrobat then save as a postscript then run through distiller to create a cleaner pdf.

As I understand it postscript does not support spot colours and transparency? So doing this will will create the equivalent of a pdf 1.3 which may lead to transparency and spot colour problems?

Please tell me I am wrong...

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

You are not wrong, however, 1.3 DOES indeed support spot colors. If they are not set-up correctly, since you are using 1.3, they will be almost impossible to fix depending on the job.

[Joe]

What RIP are you using?

[Exploded]

You are not wrong, however, 1.3 DOES indeed support spot colors. If they are not set-up correctly, since you are using 1.3, they will be almost impossible to fix depending on the job.

Yes 1.3 does support spot colours

No 1.3 does not support spot colours with transparency (that started in 1.4)

[Exploded]

What RIP are you using?

HP Smart Stream rip by Esko

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

You are not wrong, however, 1.3 DOES indeed support spot colors. If they are not set-up correctly, since you are using 1.3, they will be almost impossible to fix depending on the job.

Yes 1.3 does support spot colours

No 1.3 does not support spot colours with transparency (that started in 1.4)

No transparency at all. 1.3 flattens the pdf making spot color or even 4 color editing a VERY difficult ordeal.

[Joe]

Yeah, in a digital printing workflow transparency is going to be an issue until the RIPs can handle native transparency. If you are in control of the design process the best thing to do would be to not use transparency. For example, instead of creating soft drop shadows in Indy, Illy, or Quark...make them in Photoshop as raster images. Use clipping paths instead of making transparent backgrounds. If you have no control over the design process you'll just need to deal with the problems as they arise.

[frailer]

Instead of dotPSing and Distilling, why not try an Optimise for HiRes. For (admittedly rare) rendering issues, I've found such a preset usually works. I doubt it's as interventionist as going the old route.

[gnubler]

Don't forget Adobe's friendly default of the JPG compression with the presets.

[frailer]

Don't forget Adobe's friendly default of the JPG compression with the presets.

Yeah, had a client put onto me this week to ask about how to supply PDFs. Forgot to mention the Compression > ZIP changes.   :rolleyes:   (  is why )