Client Provided Files

[Cranniga1]

We are having something weird going on over the past month with a lot of client provided files. They are always in PDF format and we use: Illustrator >Raster link 6 v4.3.2>Mimaki JV 300-160. This has occurred on multiple medias, we are getting grids of color printing out in the middle of the images. The only way we have been able to resolve it is having the designer flatten the image which lessens the quality of the print (specifically on high resolution stuff). Here are a couple samples of the latest occurrence, any ideas?

 

[jfiscus]

If they are providing you with PDF files, Adobe Acrobat Professional has a toolbar for Print Production that has Preflight and Transparency Flattening Options. You could set up an action to flatten transparency or something else on all documents as part of your workflow? We have had issues with radial gradients in our Onyx 11 RIP and the fix for them is to flatten transparency.

 

[myront]

Possible the pdf's aren't made correctly. There area lot of settings that need to be set correctly to be be print ready. We've had to revert to using photoshop to open problem pdf's then flatten and save as a hi-res tif.

 

[bloobird0]

hello,
it happens to me the same with my CJV30 and Rasterlink for years. Of course, it happens more at the end of a print than at the beginning . I have this problem only with customer-provided PDF files that includes transparency. When it happens, I export to jpg and reprint.

 

[myront]

... I export to jpg and reprint.

jpg is a bad choice.

 

[Cranniga1]

So flattening the image doesn't manipulate the quality?

 

[2B]

if you export as the right image type, a flattened image will produce a high quality imprint.

TIFF is the best option for exporting.


what are you defining as a quality imprint? whats the DPI / PPI you are using?

 

[myront]

Correct. To my knowledge flattening has no affect on quality.

 

[TrustMoore_TN]

I've seen this sometimes with PDFs created in InDesign and sometimes Photoshop. We don't accept InDesign files (or EPS and PDFs created in InDesign)anymore because of the time it takes to make them print ready for large format printing specifically when there are many design elements and many times designers don't understand the various bleeds we need depending on the printing process.

If you have illustrator, pull it in and look at it in outline mode... if you see "tiled" blocks, that may be your problem. You could tell them to choose the Press Quality settings and see if that helps the issue. Good Luck

 

[oksigns]

Using illustrator to initially open PDFs can be bad, because that PDF is just a container for god knows how it was created in. There is a reputable large format printer I outsource to sometimes that unfortunately does this, and can cause hiccups.

If you have Photoshop, open the PDF, under the Import PDF window, set crop to Bleed to make sure it observes the entire artwork, color mode to what you prefer(CMYK or RGB), keep the resolution the same as the source file, and that will flatten it for you. Then you SAVE AS; the processed image as a TIFF with no layers with anti aliasing and you have a properly flattened image. Flattening under Acrobat sometimes misses some layers and effects and I find Photoshop's engine insures everything is rasterized as it should.

 

[Andy D]

This why I personally dislike PDF files, I have had too many anomalies using them.
Like Oksigns said, I would open them in photoshop, setting them at the highest
reasonable DPI and save them as a TIFF or a Photoshop file and rip from those.

 

[TrustMoore_TN]

Using illustrator to initially open PDFs can be bad, because that PDF is just a container for god knows how it was created in.

FYI - if you open the PDF in Acrobat, go to the File Menu > Properties and look under "Application", it will tell you the application that created the PDF. This is the first thing I do when I open a PDF that a client has supplied.

 

[bloobird0]

jpg is a bad choice.

I agree, but it's the only choice that I have when I am in this situation. I don't have acrobat pro to try transparency flattening and print files usually come too late to ask the customer to provide modified ones. I export without compression to limit loss of quality.

 

[DirtyD]

I have this problem alot with pdf's from InDesign. I print posters for our local libraries and the designer using Indesign and gives me pdfs - In ouline mode you can see the diferent blocks - What I do is open in Photoshop - export as Tiff and wam bam thank you ma'am it's printing fine.

 

[nate]

Get a RIP that can handle transparencies. Caldera and Onyx Thrive are tow that I know of that use the Adobe Print Engine to handle PDFs.

 

[oksigns]

I have this problem alot with pdf's from InDesign. I print posters for our local libraries and the designer using Indesign and gives me pdfs - In ouline mode you can see the diferent blocks - What I do is open in Photoshop - export as Tiff and wam bam thank you ma'am it's printing fine.

this is not a problem specifically with InDesign, but rather how the file is built with whatever PDF preset that is specified for export. We just observe less "processing" under Illustrator because we are already working within the logical restrictions of illustrator while InDesign is so open, a lot of the compromises with crops, masks, patterns and styles happen in the Export phase of PDF creation.

Like a lot of things Adobe does, I still don't understand why we can't have a flatten to TIFF option similar to what we do in Photoshop.

 

[fozzie]

Using illustrator to initially open PDFs can be bad, because that PDF is just a container for god knows how it was created in. There is a reputable large format printer I outsource to sometimes that unfortunately does this, and can cause hiccups.

If you have Photoshop, open the PDF, under the Import PDF window, set crop to Bleed to make sure it observes the entire artwork, color mode to what you prefer(CMYK or RGB), keep the resolution the same as the source file, and that will flatten it for you. Then you SAVE AS; the processed image as a TIFF with no layers with anti aliasing and you have a properly flattened image. Flattening under Acrobat sometimes misses some layers and effects and I find Photoshop's engine insures everything is rasterized as it should.

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