Adobe's Era Publishing Habits......

[Mohamed Al-Dabbagh]

Hi All!

I think many designers all over the world have started to convert to
the weird habits brought to them by Adobe. From the moment I started
using InDesign along with Photoshop and Illustrator (CS), I started to
feel rather lazy by not pushing myself toward the past compulsory act
of saving EPS's. I wasn't swallowing the fact of directly placing a
JPEG image without converting it to an EPS (watertight) clone. Most
unbelievably, to place a Photoshop native (CMYK) format with all
transparency it has inside an art prepared for publishing. Now, even
Illustrator accepts to swallow a Photoshop native format with all
transparency, and InDesign will in turn swallow the final Illustrator
native format that contained the original Photoshop art, (though I
notice some bugs when I place gradients created in CMYK space in
Illustrator, when I try placing the art inside InDesign).

Do you notice that it is a wholly brand new culture in desktop
publishing? I started to use Acrobat PDF format (single file) generated
by InDesign to ship my final prepress work to color separation shop,
WITHOUT shipping my fonts, placed (vector) arts and dozens of (image)
files generated by packing procedure.

I hope fellows here report any bugs they noticed by following this
relentless new set of habits in publishing. What should we do and what
should we don't? What are the precautions taken when abandon our old
(watertight) habits of desktop publishing?

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh
Senior Graphic Designer

[howldog]

On 30 Aug 2005 02:01:42 -0700, "Mohamed Al-Dabbagh"
<mohamed_al_dabbagh@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi All!I think many designers all over the world have started to convert tothe weird habits brought to them by Adobe. From the moment I startedusing InDesign along with Photoshop and Illustrator (CS), I started tofeel rather lazy by not pushing myself toward the past compulsory actof saving EPS's. I wasn't swallowing the fact of directly placing aJPEG image without converting it to an EPS (watertight) clone. Mostunbelievably, to place a Photoshop native (CMYK) format with alltransparency it has inside an art prepared for publishing. Now, evenIllustrator accepts to swallow a Photoshop native format with alltransparency, and InDesign will in turn swallow the final Illustratornative format that contained the original Photoshop art, (though Inotice some bugs when I place gradients created in CMYK space inIllustrator, when I try placing the art inside InDesign).Do you notice that it is a wholly brand new culture in desktoppublishing? I started to use Acrobat PDF format (single file) generatedby InDesign to ship my final prepress work to color separation shop,WITHOUT shipping my fonts, placed (vector) arts and dozens of (image)files generated by packing procedure.I hope fellows here report any bugs they noticed by following thisrelentless new set of habits in publishing.



personally, i believe its called progress.

[William F. Adams]

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh asked:What are the precautions taken when abandon our old(watertight) habits of desktop publishing?

Pre-flight and / or certify the .pdf.

William

[steggy]

"William F. Adams" wrote: Mohamed Al-Dabbagh asked:What are the precautions taken when abandon our old(watertight) habits of desktop publishing? Pre-flight and / or certify the .pdf. William

Since you mention that, Certified PDF.......how come I have
my doubts about that. You get some errors, no clue what to
do to get rid of those errors (except for missing fonts but
that is clear while Distilling), send the PDF over and
everything is OK.........I have this feeling it is a lot of
pooha but no bread.
--
steg

[William F. Adams]

``steggy'' said:Since you mention that, Certified PDF.......how come I havemy doubts about that. You get some errors, no clue what todo to get rid of those errors (except for missing fonts butthat is clear while Distilling), send the PDF over andeverything is OK.........I have this feeling it is a lot ofpooha but no bread.

I don't mean to be harsh, but....

Your ignorance is showing.

If you don't know how to fix the errors, how can you expect to have
confidence in knowing what it means for there to be no errors in
certification?

I believe that once you've come to an understanding of the meaning and
significance of errors in certification and pre-flighting and learn
enough to be able to fix them you'll then have confidence in the
pre-flight and certification process.

Remember. Opinions are like buttocks, only those which are well-formed
should be shown in public.

William

[Peggy]

O, sweet William!

"William F. Adams" <willadams@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1125423426.038000.92090@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... Remember. Opinions are like buttocks, only those which are well-formed should be shown in public. William

I am SO stealing that!!! Can we send it to the White House, too?

[Aandi Inston]

steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:
Since you mention that, Certified PDF.......how come I havemy doubts about that. You get some errors, no clue what todo to get rid of those errors (except for missing fonts butthat is clear while Distilling),

Some are cryptic but all are important to understand, at least
superficially. This is part of the knowledge base a professional needs
to build up to work effectively in the new era.

Some are important because they are real problems you have to fix, and
others are important because they aren't real problems TO YOU so you
don't need to fix them OR CHECK FOR THEM.

Over and over I see people posting "I get this error in pre-flighting,
how do I fix it" when the report is telling them something that isn't
a problem to them; but they don't understand that the pre-flight rules
are what they set up to pick up their own problems, not to create
them.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

[steggy]

Aandi Inston wrote: steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:Since you mention that, Certified PDF.......how come I havemy doubts about that. You get some errors, no clue what todo to get rid of those errors (except for missing fonts butthat is clear while Distilling), Some are cryptic but all are important to understand, at least superficially. This is part of the knowledge base a professional needs to build up to work effectively in the new era. Some are important because they are real problems you have to fix, and others are important because they aren't real problems TO YOU so you don't need to fix them OR CHECK FOR THEM. Over and over I see people posting "I get this error in pre-flighting, how do I fix it" when the report is telling them something that isn't a problem to them; but they don't understand that the pre-flight rules are what they set up to pick up their own problems, not to create them.

I am well aware of the fact that software does what is good
in: report problems, whether they are really something to be
worried about ot not. I also recognize a lot of the errors
and caution messages as being not of any importance.
I do understand when it gives me the message that there are
spot colors where they should not be. Well they just are not
there in my original!

But I also get a lot of messages that I just not understand.
I have been working in pre press for 20 years, and I still
am. But these messages do not relate to the terminology I
know. And that is my problem. It might be a lingo thing,
since I am Dutch, but I doubt that, having lived and worked
in the USA for several years and using Acrobat Pro in the
Dutch version. And the Preflight of Acrobat Pro gives me the
same problems.

Also it amazes me when I get the firm demand from a magazine
to send our ad as a Certified PDF (or else you will be
lynched after torture), and I send it as a non certified
regular PDF, and I receive a thank you email telling me
everything went well with my Certified PDF.........That
makes me sceptical, but at the same time they shift
responsibility completely to the sender of the PDF. They can
not change the file, now can they, so everything that goes
wrong is to blame on the sender.

I guess it is just the fact that I cannot understand the
working of Enfocus Pitstop. I read a lot about it, but I
cannot grab it.
And that, not for you Aandi but for the other poster, that
is one of the reasons I also visit usenet. Not just to give
advice, but also to learn. There are no dumb questions in my
world, just silly answers. Step of your arrogant soap box or
go and do something else instead of ruining your keyboard.

--
steg
**BTW" my sympathy to the people of Mississippi and Alabama**

[Eric Gill]

"Mohamed Al-Dabbagh" <mohamed_al_dabbagh@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:1125392502.775608.73160@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
I hope fellows here report any bugs they noticed by following this relentless new set of habits in publishing. What should we do and what should we don't? What are the precautions taken when abandon our old (watertight) habits of desktop publishing?

I don't see what you're getting at.

I had plenty of "artists" ship ads and publications to me with placed
JPEGs, embedded instead of linked graphics, no fonts, and no proofing
hardcopy long before the era of PDF.

And PDF hardly means you cannot do small-scale correction work to files -
large scale, yes. I'd rather the only people doing the large-scale work are
the originating artists - not me, and not the people I send my files to.

[Lee Blevins]

steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:

snippage
But I also get a lot of messages that I just not understand.

more snippage

How about an example of one of these errors?

Most of the errors I've seen are pretty straightforward.

The rules for PDF1a.

Don't use RGB
Embed all the fonts completely
Turn off OPI.

If you do that what fails?

<rant>

Perhaps you think you didn't use RGB but it was defined as a color in
the color pallet of some graphic you got off the internet from some guy
in Nigeria in return for giving him your checking account number and
your mothers' maiden name.

You still have to go open that graphic and fix that color or use the ink
manager or some other tool to deal with it.

I'm not even sure if OPI makes PDFX1a fail. But you should become aware
of how to turn it on and off when placing graphics in programs that link
to graphics as opposed to programs that only embed.

Embed all the fonts. It's that simple. Do not subset any fonts. It's
that simple. Do you know where your fonts come from? I want to shoot the
next f---ing designer who sends me the font installer for the font they
purchased. If you can't embed it, don't use it. There's a billion fonts
out there. I mean c'mon. Is it that serif on the lower case i that just
gets you so worked up that you HAVE TO HAVE that font?

</rant>

[steggy]

Eric Gill wrote: "Mohamed Al-Dabbagh" <mohamed_al_dabbagh@hotmail.com> wrote in news:1125392502.775608.73160@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com: I hope fellows here report any bugs they noticed by following this relentless new set of habits in publishing. What should we do and what should we don't? What are the precautions taken when abandon our old (watertight) habits of desktop publishing? I don't see what you're getting at. I had plenty of "artists" ship ads and publications to me with placed JPEGs, embedded instead of linked graphics, no fonts, and no proofing hardcopy long before the era of PDF.

Totally true And PDF hardly means you cannot do small-scale correction work to files - large scale, yes. I'd rather the only people doing the large-scale work are the originating artists - not me, and not the people I send my files to.

But that is a concern. Certified PDF is sacred now, and how
can I check whether some pre press person at the printing
office conveniently changes anything or not? The one who
delivers the cPDF is totally responsible. I know that was
not different from the time we delivered open files. But now
they are "officially" closed files, so the proof of who did
what is totally on the table of the designer. Open up a PDF
in Illustrator and you can mess up a lot.
--
steg

[steggy]

Lee Blevins wrote: steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote: snippage But I also get a lot of messages that I just not understand. more snippage How about an example of one of these errors? Most of the errors I've seen are pretty straightforward. The rules for PDF1a. Don't use RGB Embed all the fonts completely Turn off OPI. If you do that what fails? <rant> Perhaps you think you didn't use RGB but it was defined as a color in the color pallet of some graphic you got off the internet from some guy in Nigeria in return for giving him your checking account number and your mothers' maiden name. You still have to go open that graphic and fix that color or use the ink manager or some other tool to deal with it. I'm not even sure if OPI makes PDFX1a fail. But you should become aware of how to turn it on and off when placing graphics in programs that link to graphics as opposed to programs that only embed. Embed all the fonts. It's that simple. Do not subset any fonts. It's that simple. Do you know where your fonts come from? I want to shoot the next f---ing designer who sends me the font installer for the font they purchased. If you can't embed it, don't use it. There's a billion fonts out there. I mean c'mon. Is it that serif on the lower case i that just gets you so worked up that you HAVE TO HAVE that font? </rant>

I will give you some messages soon. Messages that do not
mean anything to me or anyone around me.

Your rant. No way. I (we) know exactly what we are doing and
a mix up between RGB and CMYK is out of the question.
Nigerians land in the spam box. Internet pics are out of the
question. We use stock photo's, or photo's and slides
delivered by the client, if needed scanned by us. All fonts
are embedded. All fonts are OK. We take care of that, they
are legal fonts, we buy them from the company that sells
them, mostly Adobe.

One example from today. Not Pitstop, but making a PDF and
using Acrobat Pro for Preflight.
An addie. Red background, converted to CMYK. Three small
images, scans of covers of the magazine the ad is about.
Text. Simple! 1/4 of a page.
Preflight gives all kind of shit. One of them is: Red is a
5th plate. It is not! Another is: text will not overprint.
What??? It is black text and black is standard set to
overprint. And a lot of messages I did not understand and of
course do not remember right here and now.

And Pitstop tells us the font is not OK. The colors are
wrong. I tried everything. The message is the same.
I sent it to the publisher and everything is fine.......then
I think, what bullshit.

I must admit, we are still (not for long anymore) on Quark
4.11 and we use Suitcase XI, all under Tiger/Classic. But it
was the same under OS 9. And one test with InDesign gave the
same abacadabra.
--
steg

[William F. Adams]

``steggy'' said:One example from today. Not Pitstop,but making a PDF and using Acrobat Profor Preflight.An addie. Red background, convertedto CMYK. Three small images, scans ofcovers of the magazine the ad is about.Text. Simple! 1/4 of a page.Preflight gives all kind of shit.

GIGO
One of them is: Red is a5th plate. It is not!

Something, somewhere is set to image as a spt colour named ``Red''.
Didn't you use the Inspector to check this?
Another is: text will not overprint.What??? It is black text and black isstandard set to overprint.

Normally the complaint is black is _not_ set to overprint --- happens
often in graphics from Illustrator.
And a lot ofmessages I did not understand and ofcourse do not remember right here and now.
... I tried everything. The message is thesame. I sent it to the publisher and everythingis fine.......thenI think, what <vugarity elided>.

The difference here is you sent the pdf off and hoped for the best ---
had it been prepared properly and certified successfully you'd
(justifiably) have _expected_ the best --- see the difference?

One can fix pretty much anything in a .pdf using PitStop (exceptions
include ``cool shade'' gradients and duotones).

Next time you have such a difficulty put it up somewhere and I'll see
if I can look it over.

William

[Eric Gill]

steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:4314E1E2.25984A45@hotmail.com:
Eric Gill wrote:
And PDF hardly means you cannot do small-scale correction work to files - large scale, yes. I'd rather the only people doing the large-scale work are the originating artists - not me, and not the people I send my files to. But that is a concern. Certified PDF is sacred now, and how can I check whether some pre press person at the printing office conveniently changes anything or not?

The same way you check whether someone made changes to your native files.

I.E., you send a hardcopy proof and get huffy if something changes.
The one who delivers the cPDF is totally responsible. I know that was not different from the time we delivered open files. But now they are "officially" closed files, so the proof of who did what is totally on the table of the designer.

I'm not seeing that, either. The myth of "closed" files was put to bed long
ago - which is in a way too bad, as I'm constantly getting "requests" from
salespeople to change PDFs to work for a new purpose (PDFs that were
obviously meant as proofs, more often than not).

The type of error that is likely to be introduced has changed, certainly. No
more type re-flows. Lots of screwy glyphs and other font problems
Open up a PDF in Illustrator and you can mess up a lot.

Yes. Generally, you hose it completely. I suppose this could technically
qualify as "large scale correction". In the same way a major fire is "urban
renewal."

[Dave Balderstone]

In article <4314E5CB.91E0BD18@hotmail.com>, steggy
<steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:
Your rant. No way.

Here's a hit with the clue bat... I may not get along with the man, but
Lee Blevins is an experienced and intelligent person and knows where
his towel is when it comes to prepress.

You'd do well to go back and re-read his "rant" until it sinks in.

The symptoms you describe usually mean that someone who doesn't know
what they're doing is involved in file production. Sometimes this is
easy to deal with, sometimes not.

djb

--
Life. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. -- Dr. Who

[Tim Monk]

"steggy" wrote:
**BTW" my sympathy to the people of Mississippi and Alabama**

What about the folks in Louisiana? I hope Inez is okay!!!!!!!

Tim

[Michael]

Hello,

I have enjoyed the changes to our workflow. To be sure on any given day
I can praise Adobe for their software and curse it the next moment.

Overal the improved connection between design and production has pleased
me most. Takes less time to accomplish much in the creative process and
move that over into production.

There have been a couple of bumps along the way but mostly success is
the norm.

I also think that some credit must be given to the RIP manufacturers.
Bringing the RIPs forward to be able to handle all the new stuff being
throw at it. They did it kicking and screaming all the way to the bank.

Between the RIPs and faster processors I seldom run accross a job that
will not run DTP. I get some real garbage from clients that does not
have enough money, in the job, to even look at it funny. So I will throw
it at the DTP system willy nilly and it will run just fine, JPG, wacky
fonts and all.

I believe the industry changes due to our complaints and whining. (As
long as we are willing to spend more money) So complain loudly if it
doesn't work the way you expect.

Things have changed...

Don't they always.

Michael



Mohamed Al-Dabbagh wrote:
Hi All!I think many designers all over the world have started to convert tothe weird habits brought to them by Adobe. From the moment I startedusing InDesign along with Photoshop and Illustrator (CS), I started tofeel rather lazy by not pushing myself toward the past compulsory actof saving EPS's. I wasn't swallowing the fact of directly placing aJPEG image without converting it to an EPS (watertight) clone. Mostunbelievably, to place a Photoshop native (CMYK) format with alltransparency it has inside an art prepared for publishing. Now, evenIllustrator accepts to swallow a Photoshop native format with alltransparency, and InDesign will in turn swallow the final Illustratornative format that contained the original Photoshop art, (though Inotice some bugs when I place gradients created in CMYK space inIllustrator, when I try placing the art inside InDesign).Do you notice that it is a wholly brand new culture in desktoppublishing? I started to use Acrobat PDF format (single file) generatedby InDesign to ship my final prepress work to color separation shop,WITHOUT shipping my fonts, placed (vector) arts and dozens of (image)files generated by packing procedure.I hope fellows here report any bugs they noticed by following thisrelentless new set of habits in publishing. What should we do and whatshould we don't? What are the precautions taken when abandon our old(watertight) habits of desktop publishing?Mohamed Al-DabbaghSenior Graphic Designer

[Aandi Inston]

steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:One example from today. Not Pitstop, but making a PDF andusing Acrobat Pro for Preflight.An addie. Red background, converted to CMYK. Three smallimages, scans of covers of the magazine the ad is about.Text. Simple! 1/4 of a page.Preflight gives all kind of shit. One of them is: Red is a5th plate. It is not!

It seems very unlikely that any software would make this up. There are
six plate names that could appear that might be misleading: Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow, Black (which are process plates), All (which is
registration) and None (which is invisible). If it says there is a
plate called Red, then there almost certainly is one, even if there is
nothing visible set in that plate. Did you try making separations, to
check?
Another is: text will not overprint.What??? It is black text and black is standard set tooverprint.

Again, it is more likely that the message is right than that it is
wrong.And Pitstop tells us the font is not OK. The colors arewrong. I tried everything.

Details?
I sent it to the publisher and everything is fine......

Maybe the pre-flight rules are too strict. This is a common problem.

----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

[John McWilliams]

Peggy wrote: O, sweet William! "William F. Adams" <willadams@aol.com> wrote in message news:1125423426.038000.92090@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...Remember. Opinions are like buttocks, only those which are well-formedshould be shown in public.
I am SO stealing that!!!

Aleady done. Is this yours, William, or can you supply attribution if it
isn't?

--
John McWilliams

Remember: Opinions are like buttocks; only those which are well-formed
should be shown in public.

[William F. Adams]

John asked:Aleady done. Is this yours, William, or can you supply attribution if itisn't?

It's my translation of something my mother used to say.

William

[William F. Adams]

John asked:
Aleady done. Is this yours, William, or can you supply attribution if itisn't?

It's my version of something my mother once tried to explain to me, so
I guess I'm to blame.

William

[steggy]

Dave Balderstone wrote: In article <4314E5CB.91E0BD18@hotmail.com>, steggy <steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote: Your rant. No way. Here's a hit with the clue bat...

Here is the basket.
Keep on snipping so you do not need to answer the contents,
but just have fun.

--
steg

[steggy]

Tim Monk wrote: "steggy" wrote: **BTW" my sympathy to the people of Mississippi and Alabama** What about the folks in Louisiana? I hope Inez is okay!!!!!!! Tim

Sorry, I missed that........I hope so too.
--
steg

[Dave Balderstone]

In article <43162400.60EFAC34@hotmail.com>, steggy
<steggy2001@hotmail.com> wrote:
Here is the basket. Keep on snipping so you do not need to answer the contents, but just have fun.

I addressed your "contents".

I said:
The symptoms you describe usually mean that someone who doesn't know what they're doing is involved in file production. Sometimes this is easy to deal with, sometimes not.

You say you are an expert, so there is no way the error messages you
see can be real.

People I KNOW are experts (like Lee) are telling you that you are
mistaken, and that if you are seeing error messages then there are
errors.

Just because you don't *like* the answers you are receiving, it diesn't
mean the asnwers are *wrong*.

djb

--
Life. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. -- Dr. Who

[William F. Adams]

Dave Balderstone said: You say you are an expert, so there is no way the error messages you see can be real.
People I KNOW are experts (like Lee) are telling you that you are mistaken, and that if you are seeing error messages then there are errors.

Likely a good example of this would be found in the ``Red'' plate error
cited previously --- since the job was sent in and printed okay, the
likely case here is that there is some object which should be
``White'', but is instead 0% spot colour ``Red''

Doesn't affect the printing (so long as the RIP operator suppresses the
empty Red plate --- anyone want to 'fess up to their record of
expenditure for blank film?) but does (justifiably) preclude
certification w/o fixing it.

William

[Mohamed Al-Dabbagh]

William F. Adams wrote: If you don't know how to fix the errors, how can you expect to have confidence in knowing what it means for there to be no errors in certification?

When I am in a hurry, no spot colors are involved, small number of
pages layouts, and had some errors that cannot be easily tracked in
that limited time, I use the method of trying to rasterize the PDF in
hand using Photoshop, on another machine, that contains only the
minimal surviving set of fonts, and the CMYK setup is set to the
required black generation, then I let the client sign his approval on
the Photoshop's printout!

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh
Senior Graphic Designer

[Tim Monk]

"Mohamed Al-Dabbagh" wrote:
William F. Adams wrote: If you don't know how to fix the errors, how can you expect to have confidence in knowing what it means for there to be no errors in certification? When I am in a hurry, no spot colors are involved, small number of pages layouts, and had some errors that cannot be easily tracked in that limited time, I use the method of trying to rasterize the PDF in hand using Photoshop, on another machine, that contains only the minimal surviving set of fonts, and the CMYK setup is set to the required black generation, then I let the client sign his approval on the Photoshop's printout!

Okay. Weird. That's not only really-bad practice, but it's also a HUGE
disservice to your clients. Why exactly do you go about ruining final
output, rather than fixing things upstream? This doesn't make any sense to
me. Are you joking, and forgot to use an emoticon, maybe? I hope so.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to prepress. Fix the problems, don't
work around them in unconventional ways. Read William's question again.
Think about it. Ponder exactly what he's asking...

Okay, now that you've done that, why don't you answer his question. I'm
curious, too.

?,

Tim

[Mohamed Al-Dabbagh]

Tim Monk wrote:
Okay. Weird. That's not only really-bad practice, but it's also a HUGE disservice to your clients. Why exactly do you go about ruining final output, rather than fixing things upstream? This doesn't make any sense to me. Are you joking, and forgot to use an emoticon, maybe? I hope so.

Just imagine that you have 20 minutes to dispatch the design to the
color separation and client decided to make some modification, and the
design does not actually contains briliant gems, and has no spot
colors, and the client has actually provided you with humble pictures,
and paid for electricity only!

Most serious preflight complains include RGB warnings, font
unavailability, placed arts problems, etc. However you have to notice
that clean (no complains) rasterization in Photoshop of a PDF file,
using the required CMYK conversion curve, with 300 DPI resolution or
more, will eventually indicate having acceptable result when you RIP a
PDF! And guess what? This is not a joke! {:-|

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh
Senior Graphic Designer