Another question about generating PDFs out of InDesign.

I have an Indy file from a customer with a placed PSD. When I generate a PDF from Indy with the default Press settings I see quality degradation in the PSD when I zoom in in Acrobat. See screenshot babies-press.jpg. This default setting downsamples to 300 dpi - should the image appear that jaggy when zooming in?

Then when I use a custom PDF preset I've made - with compression set to Do Not Downsample and ZIP compression, the image remains sharp & clear no matter how close I zoom in. See babies-noDS.jpg.

The placed PSD is a 300 dpi image, but is scaled down 38% in Indy.

Babies. I love them! I've spent HOURS on this project just so I have an excuse to look at those precious little blessings!

Well, you wouldn't think it should do this. Is the PSD just an image of the babies? If it is, try making the image a tif and doing the same method.

I've seen this happen before and it's annoying. I believe I did save as tiff, eps etc. with no luck. No compression does the trick. I've not figured out why some pics do this others don't at different formats. Not a 16 vers. 8bit issue.

Quote from: Joe on September 14, 2010, 09:51:52 AMWell, you wouldn't think it should do this. Is the PSD just an image of the babies? If it is, try making the image a tif and doing the same method.

I'll try that. Was wondering if layered PSD had something to do with it. Will report back, Ninja Masters.

Saved as flattened TIFF, no compression, and I still got the jaggy image using the default Press PDF preset. Using a preset with no downsampling & ZIP compression still results in a sharp, crisp image.

Hmmmm...I'll bet it has something to do with scaling it down 38% and then down sampling. To find out, reduce it 38% in Photoshop and then output a PDF both ways. I think they will both come out sharp.

Scaled down dimensions to 38% in PS, saved new TIFF, replaced in Indy at 100% size. Press preset still resulted in a jaggy image in the PDF.

Hmmmm....the mystery deepens. Are you exporting or printing PS to distill?

Exporting from Indy. I'll try distilling and see what happens.

This already went to press, I just wanted to find out why the image is being degraded.

Is it just this image? Others on the same job downsampled OK?

I looked at the default settings for press quality and found that it uses "Automatic (JPEG) " compression for all images.  That could be the issue.

Quote from: PrepressCrapFixer on September 14, 2010, 11:26:23 AMI looked at the default settings for press quality and found that it uses "Automatic (JPEG) " compression for all images.  That could be the issue.

Good point. Never use JPEG compression.

Quote from: Joe on September 14, 2010, 11:44:04 AM

Quote from: PrepressCrapFixer on September 14, 2010, 11:26:23 AMI looked at the default settings for press quality and found that it uses "Automatic (JPEG) " compression for all images.  That could be the issue.

Good point. Never use JPEG compression.

Ditto-Ditto.

Foshizzle. I'll change that to ZIP or something else and see what happens.

Quote from: gnubler on September 14, 2010, 12:46:16 PMFoshizzle. I'll change that to ZIP or something else and see what happens.

Stick with ZIP. JPEG is evil. Like fonts.