Hey guys... Here's a new one...
Just had a client supply their brochure artwork as a booksmart (.bookexport) file.
This is from the free software you can download at blurb.com specifically to design books to be printed and distributed by blurb.com
I'm guessing this means that only blurb.com can print from these bookexport files and the the booksmart software isn't going to allow my client to save something more useful. Such as a PDF.
Any of you come across these before? Is there anything we can do other than tell the client to go home and start again on some proper software? Like Publisher or Quark for example? Or maybe Word...
Cheers!

Hello!
Maybe you can help me settle an argument before I start it. Maybe you can confuse me some more...
What is the CMYK equivalent of Pantone Orange 021 according to you?
RM

Hi All,

I keep seeing this in PDFs from clients that have been created in Indy or Illy. It's always images which are upside-down, having been rotated 180 degrees. I think it's always occurring when these images are downsampled to 300dpi when the PDF is created.

The images literally come out with rectangular pixels.

Anyone else seeing this?

Anyone know why this happens?

Is it fixed in CS3?

(I'm stuck with CS2 for now...)

Cheers guys.

Oh Dear. I've managed to avoid this until now.

We have one single client who, unfortunately, places a shedload of business with us. They always supply Quark artwork, back-saved from Q7 to Q6.

They've only just realised that an entire series of their DVDs are missing a drop shadow on the wrap. What can we do about it?

I suggest they supply PDFs instead of Quark artwork.

That would mean doing some work. Or at least pushing a couple of buttons. This is more than our client is willing to do!

So I have to get Quark 7. I don't want to get Quark 7. But it looks like I'm going to have to.

In your collective experience, what problems should I look out for when installing and using this godforsaken software?

(PS. I know the pun in my subject line only works if you mispronounce 'Quark' but I'm still a tiny bit proud of it...  :tongue:)

Or is it all paper based? Or do you print onto other things?

Just wondering as I'm pretty much printing onto anything that stays still long enough, with discs and packaging being the core business. We've only really just started taking on a lot more paper printing jobs in the last few months.

Printing and manufacturing discs and packaging comes with it's own set of tricks to try and catch us out! Would be interesting to discuss with you lot if you're in the same boat...?

Not sure if this should be in Photoshop or Illy...

The boss has just handed me a disc with about forty colour photographs of various products on a Blue to White gradient background.

I have to remove the background on each one so they can be placed on a different background on our website. I would not like this to take all weekend!

A lot of them will comprise of basic straight edges so I would probably make a clipping mask by hand in Illy if it was a one off.

However, some have more complex edges.

Is there a quick and easy way to cut out the product from the background? I'm sure I've heard of some but I've not had to do this many on one job before...

I look forward to your ever useful comments!

Hi Guys,

I'm having a recurring problem, only recently that I've noticed, with vector artwork.

This is for screen printing discs. I have nice artwork out of Illy made entirely of complete vectors. As a matter of course I check the files then save to EPS or PS and distill.

What is happening is that the distilled file has all the vectors opened up. Every single separate shape has one edge missing. It looks the same, as the unjoined points just join up by default I guess.

The problem comes when I ask our printer to set up some trapping. They can't because the vectors are open. This is not the case in the original PDF, only after distilling.

How can I stop this? Any ideas?

Hi Guys,

I'm having trouble doing something I thought would be simple!

Client has supplied a logo to print onto a disc. The logo is simply one word in outlines. The font looks like swiss 911 but I don't have this font.

I've said, 'yeah no probs, I'll put your disc design together as you're incapable of putting a logo onto a 118mm square layout.'.

But now the client has said they want their logo text to go around the edge of the disc in a circular fashion.

If this were just text I would have no problem drawing a circle and then 'typing to a path' to get perfect results.

But this isn't text. Its a word made up of twelve vector shapes, one for each letter.

Is there a way of making objects follow a circular path in Illy? They would need to rotate correctly as text on a path would.

I said I could do this in half an hour or less. It's now home-time and I've done nothing! Ooops...

Any help appreciated!

Thanks!

Stoo

Hi Guys! Happy new year and that!

Often, I am supplied artwork for disc printing that is in CMYK but would be far better printed with solid spot colours.

Often, the client will not specify a Pantone reference but asks me to do it.

Generally, I open the CMYK image in Photoshop then use the picker to select the CMYK colour, then click 'Colour Libraries' and it selects a closest Pantone reference.

However, I don't always think it choses the best Pantone for the job.

What methods of selecting closest match Pantone colours to CMYK colours do you lot ever use? Is there an official, accurate method?

Generally this is applied to screen printed CDs and DVDs using the Pantone Solid Coated inks.

I look forward to your response!

Stoo

Hello y'all!

I've got a little marketing project to do for a product we're going to try to sell to our clients.

The product has a space to print a logo. I have a designer creating an advert for the product in Quark 6. The advert includes three pictures of the product with our logo on it. I've asked him to ensure the logo is a linked image, separate from the rest of the design.

Now the fun bit.

I have to take to logos of 150 of our top clients and output a PDF for each one with the relevant logo on the image. So we end up with 150 PDFs which are identical apart from the logo.

Is there any way of automating this so that I don't literally have to relink to the logo, output a PDF, relink to next logo, output PDF, relink to the next logo etc etc... 150 times?

I try to avoid doing anything too complicated in Quark but I think I'm going to have to use it on this one, thanks to our designer.

On the upside, the boss is offering me overtime to do this at home!

Can anyone advise me on the quickest way to do this?

Cheers!