PS (jpeg) white is printing off white

[jr_t1t]

Not sure if this is the best place for this question or not. I recently switched from CS2 to CS5 awhile back (I know I'm still way behind) and my jpegs from photshop have started printing off white where it's supposed to just remain white. If i open a jpeg in Illustrator and save as an eps from there and print the white will stay true white (wont print.) Is there some sort of setting I can change causing this? I'd rather not print an eps because I feel the colors from the jpeg are much more vibrant. I never had this problem with CS2, it just started showing up with CS5.

 

[AKwrapguy]

Not sure if this is the best place for this question or not. I recently switched from CS2 to CS5 awhile back (I know I'm still way behind) and my jpegs from photshop have started printing off white where it's supposed to just remain white. If i open a jpeg in Illustrator and save as an eps from there and print the white will stay true white (wont print.) Is there some sort of setting I can change causing this? I'd rather not print an eps because I feel the colors from the jpeg are much more vibrant. I never had this problem with CS2, it just started showing up with CS5.

Jpegs are the bane of our existence. If you have to work in a raster format why not use one that is uncompressed such as PNG, TIFF, you could also save as a PDF. All or any of these will help you out.

 

[jr_t1t]

Versaworks won't open a PNG, TIFF gives the same results (printing off white) as the jpeg out of photoshop. Seems as though the only (versaworks friendly) option out of photoshop that doesnt mess with the white is a pdf but I don't like the print quality with it.

Was hoping it might have been some sort of photoshop option that I was overlooking, since like I said I never had the issue with CS2. Maybe I'll just revert back to cs2

 

[jr_t1t]

Here's a reference to what I'm talking about. Both files were saved out of photoshop, eps on the right with pdf on the left. Notice the offwhite box on the right with the eps where it is printing instead of just staying true white.

 

[unclebun]

I don't use Photoshop, but it'll be in your color handling options. It's applying a profile to your eps saving that is changing the colors.

 

[papabud]

looks like you have a transparency issue, where its not flattening the image correctly and is printing a background

 

[iraney]

make the jpeg CMYK not RGB

 

[Solventinkjet]

EPS files don't include an input profile and PDFs do which means the RIP is going to interpret them differently. There is absolutely no reason a PDF would be less quality than an EPS or any other file but if your down sample settings while saving the PDF are turned on, that would cause the quality to go down. When you go to save as a PDF, look at the options. One of them should be, "Compression". Click on that and there will be a setting for, "Down-sampling" Make sure you are set for ,"do not down sample" and also turn off compression. Now when you send a PDF, it should be as high quality as your file began with.

 

[Pauly]

Not sure if this is the best place for this question or not. I recently switched from CS2 to CS5 awhile back (I know I'm still way behind) and my jpegs from photshop have started printing off white where it's supposed to just remain white. If i open a jpeg in Illustrator and save as an eps from there and print the white will stay true white (wont print.) Is there some sort of setting I can change causing this? I'd rather not print an eps because I feel the colors from the jpeg are much more vibrant. I never had this problem with CS2, it just started showing up with CS5.

Not sure why you're even printing in JPEG.

Versaworks won't open a PNG, TIFF gives the same results (printing off white) as the jpeg out of photoshop. Seems as though the only (versaworks friendly) option out of photoshop that doesnt mess with the white is a pdf but I don't like the print quality with it.

Was hoping it might have been some sort of photoshop option that I was overlooking, since like I said I never had the issue with CS2. Maybe I'll just revert back to cs2

You're probably not saving your PDFs correctly. Elaborate further? Print quality as in colour or sharpness.

make the jpeg CMYK not RGB

That's not the issue. IMO if you're printing photos, it should be in RBG and let the RIP do it's job and covert the colours so your printer understands it.


The issue could possibly be the colour space in photoshop. TIFF, PDF (even jpeg) will embed an icc profile. EPS doesn't so either way EPS vs TIFF or PDF you'll see a difference in colour.

Go into PS and go Edit - Colour setting. RGB should be sRGB and CMYK should be U.S web coated (SWOP) v2
Check those.

 

[shoresigns]

Most of the time, I like to help people solve problems here, but sometimes I just don't know where to even begin. Does anyone know of a good online pre-press course we can start recommending to what's clearly a majority of sign shop owners, who have absolutely no clue how to set up files for printing?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Most of the time, I like to help people solve problems here, but sometimes I just don't know where to even begin. Does anyone know of a good online pre-press course we can start recommending to what's clearly a majority of sign shop owners, who have absolutely no clue how to set up files for printing?

I agree. I see more and more of these posts on Signs101 recently. Basic file prep and color correction knowledge seems to be far and few between. Especially when it comes to understanding color spaces in design software. Everyone knows about output profiles but it seems input profiles get forgotten. It's a side effect of cheap entry into the market. If you had to go to, and pay for, school for 2 years to be able to run a printer, way fewer people would get into the business. Since most people can get by on default input profiles and boxed output profiles, a lot of people don't go looking to complicate it anymore. I don't think it's people being lazy. I think it's just something they don't know they need to know.

 

[ColorCrest]

If you had to go to, and pay for, school for 2 years to be able to run a printer, way fewer people would get into the business.

Similar to going to Costco to purchase QuickBooks and all of the sudden you're a bookkeeper.

 

[jr_t1t]

I appreciate those trying to help, I'm not a sign shop and don't claim to be on a professional sign shop level. I'm just a guy that bought a used printer and likes to wrap my own racecars and some others which most of y'all wouldn't touch because there's no money to be made....with that said I do what works better for me. When I say I get better results from printing jpegs I mean color (vibrance and coverage.) I need to replace my black/cyan head soon but after just replacing a main board I'm trying to get by with what i have for now. Printing eps or other vector formats for whatever reason seems to show the flaws of the print head (banding lines, etc..) I don't have to worry about sending my files to anyone and I design in high enough quality that I'm not too concerned flattening a file for print (i keep vector formats and layered photoshop files of everything as well.)

Sorry I'm not on most of your levels, like I said I'm just trying trying to make due with what I have.