Exporting pdfs in Indesign for Photobook ?

[intex]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I am using Adobe Indesign to design our Photobooks. The publisher, Sharedink.com, has instructed us to export as Hi-Quality pdf at 300dpi, then rasterize in Photoshop, then save as Level 10 jpg, then combine into Zip file.

 

My first question is, how do you export the best quality pdf in Indesign ? I see 2 ways:

1. Use File >export , then save as .pdf

2. Use File > Adobe PDF Presets, then choose one of the presets, which one ??

 

 

Which method is the preferred? Thanks (Indesign Newbie)

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Guest roey]

What you need to control in this (rather interesting) workflow is down/upsampling and color conversions.

 

You will want to make sure that your photos are only down/upsampled (=resized) once. I would make sure that InDesign doesn't resize your images -- choose Do Not Downsample for all three categories in the Compression section of the PDF Export dialog. When opening the PDF in PS you will need to specify your target resolution.

 

Assuming that they want sRGB Jpegs I would let ID convert to sRGB in the Output section of the dialog. If you are not sure which color space they expect you will want to ask them. When opening the PDF in PS you will want to make sure to target that color space in the import dialog.

 

What about bleed? If you want to have photos or backgrounds bleed off the page you will want to ask your print service how much bleed you should set up (and if they want crop marks). Specify the bleed in the Document Setup dialog in ID and then ask PS to crop to the bleed box when rasterizing the PDF.

 

Hope this helps

[Fotomiguel]

What you need to control in this (rather interesting) workflow is down/upsampling and color conversions.

 

You will want to make sure that your photos are only down/upsampled (=resized) once. I would make sure that InDesign doesn't resize your images -- choose Do Not Downsample for all three categories in the Compression section of the PDF Export dialog. When opening the PDF in PS you will need to specify your target resolution.

 

Assuming that they want sRGB Jpegs I would let ID convert to sRGB in the Output section of the dialog. If you are not sure which color space they expect you will want to ask them. When opening the PDF in PS you will want to make sure to target that color space in the import dialog.

 

What about bleed? If you want to have photos or backgrounds bleed off the page you will want to ask your print service how much bleed you should set up (and if they want crop marks). Specify the bleed in the Document Setup dialog in ID and then ask PS to crop to the bleed box when rasterizing the PDF.

 

Hope this helps

Hi Roey,

I've been watching your website. Very nice! Roey Horns I thing is very nice how is presented, very functional and I like very much its design and the photos . Is this from Sharedink.com or another publisher. Could you tell me how do you get your dominio and how much do you pay for it and for your website

Sorry if I'm too curious.

Thanks

Miguel.

[Guest roey]

Hello Miguel,

 

Thanks for your feedback (and apologies to intex for digressing from his/her original topic for this thread). I earn my living with software development, so I programmed the website myself. Since I also host it myself I pay only USD 35 per year for the domain name (via easydns.com).

 

Cheers

[delander †]

It is a strange workflow. I just send pdfs prepared to the correct specification.

 

For offset that would be a CMYK pdf, for digital I think it is the same?

 

Jeff

[John Thawley]

Follow the SharedInk instructions. Chris knows what he's doing and puts out a FANTASTIC product. He babysits his product ... and will do everything to assure your book is right and you are satisfied. He's done over 500 books for me. Beautiful work.

 

Your question about Indesign export of PDFs is simple. One setting is creating a Preset, the other is simply where you select the output (and if you had created or edited a Preset, it will show up there. You needn't worry about creating a Preset.

 

Output your document using the PRESS preset. You will see you have three choices... the first is low quality strictly for screen display, the second is a high quality for local pinting .... like inkjet, the third is Press Quailty. This what you'd normally give to a commercial printing company.

 

Once you've done that, you can open the PDFs in Photoshop and save them as JPEGs.

 

The 10 quality is fine.... the printer that print-on-demand printers (like Blurb, Snapfish, SharedInk... etc.) doesn't use 300dpi... hence there is no subsequent difference in a 10 quality file or 12 quality file... just size.

 

If you've got your page layouts right in InDesign, and you check them against the templates Chris has at SharedInk, you'll be fine.

 

Keep in mind, alll these services basically use the same machine. It's how they manage them and watch over the job that makes the difference. If I need to do a book that requires a careful eye, SharedInk is my first choice. They actually answer their phone. And, I can promise you, their bindery work is OUT OF THIS WORLD. Everything is first class... the materails, the linens... the end papers... spectacular. And if you go with their leather ... it is the REAL DEAL. It's slightly padded and feels like Italian driving gloves. Well worth the difference in cost.

 

You'll be happy.

 

JT

[John Thawley]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

It is a strange workflow. I just send pdfs prepared to the correct specification.

 

For offset that would be a CMYK pdf, for digital I think it is the same?

 

Jeff

 

For digital it is RGB. It's not really a strange workflow... SharedInk would normally have you just lay out your pages in Photoshop and save them as 10 quality JPEGS. My guess is this poster might be including quite a bit of text or several complex layouts... perhaps a little more complex than a photo book.

 

So this method will allow him to "design" his book in InDesign. The Press Quality PDF will preserve the layout at the highest quality. Bringing it in Photoshop will give him the ability to convert it to a JPEG without any quality loss. SharedInk wants JPEGs because that's the files they read (and probably applies a fixed set of "tweaks" to) and interpret "visually" for their digital output... be it an HP Indigo or whatever.

 

JT

[delander †]

Hi John,

 

I am interested in doing a photobook, are they all using Hp Indigo or Xerox Xgen?

 

I use ID every day in my job, but up to now I have always output to pdf for offset.

 

I have contacted a couple of print on demand companies and they seem to want pdfs also.

 

These digital presses are also cmyk aren't they.

 

Also any comments on the colour gamut of the digital presses?

 

Jeff

[John Thawley]

Hi John,

 

I am interested in doing a photobook, are they all using Hp Indigo or Xerox Xgen?

 

I use ID every day in my job, but up to now I have always output to pdf for offset.

 

I have contacted a couple of print on demand companies and they seem to want pdfs also.

 

These digital presses are also cmyk aren't they.

 

Also any comments on the colour gamut of the digital presses?

 

Jeff

 

Most I've come acrros don't want a PDF... though, in the end, they are PDFs. I just think everyone sets up their requirements so that it can be "automatically" converted to fit thier output specs.

 

Other than SharedInk, I've found most print-on-demand to be fairly close in quality. So,more often than not, I'll use Blurb. More bang per buck there. I've seen the odd page have black point issues here and there... but for the most part, with those machines, they are what they are. SharedInk will pay attention and will stand behind their quality. So when I have an imnportant book to do... it goes there. White House Custom Color is a hands-on group as well. But no one can touch the bindery quality of SharedInk. When you pick up his book, you know you've got something other than the run-of-the-mill print on demand.

 

I'm quite sure they all end up in RGB, though. Even White House Custom Color (a photo lab) offers "press" printed products ... short run posters and such... I do short runs of 100-500 through them and give them RGB JPEGs.

 

JT

[Guest roey]

Hi John,

 

I am interested in doing a photobook, are they all using Hp Indigo or Xerox Xgen?

 

I use ID every day in my job, but up to now I have always output to pdf for offset.

 

I have contacted a couple of print on demand companies and they seem to want pdfs also.

 

These digital presses are also cmyk aren't they.

 

Also any comments on the colour gamut of the digital presses?

 

Jeff

 

Jeff,

 

In the end all printers use CMYK (or CMYK plus some other inks). But unless you have the target CMYK profile and you really know what you are doing I would recommend sticking with RGB and let the printer do the conversion to CMYK.

 

In my experience the color gamut of the digital presses is OK but nothing compared to a high-end inkjet printer with good paper. I would ask for a color profile so that you can at least find those out-of-gamut colors and know what you can expect.

 

I guess they ask for Jpegs because Jpegs are a known quantity. There are many different ways to generate PDFs with a zillion different settings and so many applications that do a poor job at creating PDF. If you deal with consumers it is easier to eliminate the complexity -- which is sad, because you ultimately lose quality.

[Guest roey]

The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that I would not use this workflow if I care about the quality of the text rendering. 300 dpi is a good resolution for photos, but not good enough for text or line art.

[intex]

This is the first time I am using Sharedink, and was advised that if I include any text, I should use Indesign, rather than Photoshop, that is the reason I began this project in Indesign (which I was totally unfamiliar with). I too had reservations about loss of quality with so many conversions.

 

This is the advice I received from Chris at Sharedink, I hope he does not mind me sharing it here for the benefit of others:

 

[i]"If you do layout your book in InDesign, I strongly recommend that you export your book design from InDesign as a high-quality PDF at 300 dpi. Then you should rasterize your PDF file using Photoshop (rasterize at 300 dpi in RGB). You then save each rasterized page as a high-quality (Level 10) JPEG.

 

Then your zip file will contain one jpeg for each page of your book (Page001.jpg, Page002.jpg, Page003.jpg, etc).

 

Please do *not* upload a INDD (this is an InDesign file) - we cannot process INDD files."[/i]

 

So if I understand correctly, I should export using the FILE>ADOBE PRESETS>PRESS QUALITY setting. Using this, I have no other choices/options that I am aware of. Afterwards I will import these into Photoshop (with which command, and what settings?) then rasterize at 300dpi, then save as Level 10 jpgs.

 

My question here, is that Sharedink wants each page saved as a seperate jpg. How do I accomplish this ? Is this done in Indesign, by exporting page by page somehow, or in Photoshop?

 

Your help is greatly apprecaited, as is all the comments/assisitance so far. As far as Sharedink goes, I have also heard nothing but praise for their work.

[Guest roey]

When you open a PDF in PS you get a dialog that allows you to specify page ranges, resolution and other settings. So you export one PDF out of ID and let PS create one Jpeg per page.

 

As I mentioned above: If you want the best quality text I would advise against rasterizing it at 300dpi.

 

Hope this helps

[John Thawley]

When you open a PDF in PS you get a dialog that allows you to specify page ranges, resolution and other settings. So you export one PDF out of ID and let PS create one Jpeg per page.

 

As I mentioned above: If you want the best quality text I would advise against rasterizing it at 300dpi.

 

Hope this helps

 

I understand your hesitation. But, Chris (SharedInk) published 500 books for me following this very same format. The output was superb.

 

Where you have to be careful is light text on dark backgrounds (digital printers just don't trap well) and/or using to small of type in your text.

 

But, honestly, we did leather bound books that sold for $150 retail and they were beautiful.

 

JT

[Guest roey]

John,

 

I am not saying that the quality will be poor. However it will not be as good as it could be. The press they are using should be able to print black text at around 1200 dpi. By rasterizing (and antialiasing) the text to 300 dpi you are sacrificing a lot.

[intex]

I have finally completed my first book in Adobe Indesign. I now have to export it out in pdf form, but am having some difficulty, I hvae set up the output as follows:

Qualty : Press Quality

Compatibilty: Acrobat 5

Compression: (Color/Greyscale) Auto , Do NOT downsample

Marks: None

Bleed and Slugs: None

Output Color Conversion: Convert to Destination, (Preserve Numbers)

Destination: Document RGB : sRGB IEC61966

Profile Inclusion : Don’t Include Profiles

 

Now when I try to convert to pdf, it says that the Document Transparency Blend Space does not match the Destination Color Space

 

What does this mean, and if I change the output to NO COLOR CONVERSION, it should work, but uis this the correct way to accomplish this?

 

Thanks for all the help

[Guest roey]

If you use transparency in your document (eg. drop shadows) InDesign needs to blend objects with each other. In order to do that it has to convert the objects to a common color space. The default for that is your CMYK document space. You will want to set it to your RGB document space in the Edit menu.

 

Hope this helps