CreativePro Forum

Return to Member Forum

• Author
  Posts
• • January 13, 2010 at 1:18 pm #54435
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hello everybody,

    I'm currently laying out a magazine in InDesign CS4. The problem is that after a coupe of minutes the quality of both graphics and text becomes jagged – much like the 'fast display' setting in view / display performance. I've tried everything that I can think of to resolve this:

    Set 'Display Performace' to 'Typical'

    Cleared Object level display settings

    Reset / replaced all preferences

    Reinstalled CS4

    Turned the 'Aero' theme off

    The only workaround I've come up with so far is to keep 'overprint preview' turned on. Strangely enough this rarely turns everything jagged, although it's been known to do this once or twice.

    I'm on Windows 7 64bit, 4Gb RAM, Intel 6600 Quad Core, 2 monitors, one for page, the other for pallettes.

    I don't think that it's a graphic card issue as everything else runs smoothly. Is this a known bug? Endless searching through Google reveals nothing.

    Thanks all.

  • January 13, 2010 at 1:45 pm #54436
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    All InDesign shows you is a preview of the image – for page layout purposes only. If you want to check the quality of raster images then you need to use the Window>Info and make sure your images are a high enough PPI – it's imporant to read the Effective PPI and not the Actual PPI. If the Effective PPI is from 225 ppi or above then the images are most likely fine. If you want to view the image to see quality you need to open the image in your raster editing program, like photoshop or other.

    Vector images may appear jagged, but again this is only the Preview. If you're concerned about quality you need to open the image in your vector editing program, like Illustator or other, and make sure the quality is acceptable.

    The Display Performances in InDesign (View Display Performance) can show you a fast (no graphics shown), typical (lo-res preview) or high (high res preview). Depending on the amount of graphics and/or the quality of the graphics the High setting can seriously degrade the speed of your computer, which could hinder production.

    Working in Overprint Preview is always a good idea, but this will use the High Quality display performance and also with Overprint Preview turned on you cannot see Spelling Errors (that is if you have enabled Dynamic Spelling in Edit>Spelling>Dynamic Spelling). But the Overprint Preview gives you a High Quality Display of images and it also shows you how colours interact with each other when Blending Modes and Transparencies are in play (albeit that sometimes it's not very accurate – I've had my 'mare moments).

    Anyway – InDesign is for Page Layout for mostly printing purposes. If your images display high enough quality in their Parent Applications (Photoshop/other or Illustrator/other) and you're satisfied with the onscreen quality shown then they should be fine. But you should always do a print out – again InDesign is primarily for laying out documents for Print – so the only way you can be sure if it's accurate is to print it out.

    If you're getting it printed by a lithographic printing/digital/flexo etc. you should always get a proof from the printer that has gone through their system and if you're concerned about the quality of any images you can request that those pages are supplied as High Res print outs for your sign off.

  • January 13, 2010 at 2:44 pm #54438
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hi there, and thanks for the quick reply.

    I don't think that I've explained myself very well. The issue isn't confined to images, rather the entire layout, text included. It's as if the graphic card (Radeon 4870 512mb) runs out of texture memory and InDesign defaults to lowest display setting. I should also explain that I've been a designer for 20 years and have recently made the switch from QuarkXpress, so understand your advice well.

    PDF's print fine and there's no issue with the eventual output. It's just very annoying to have to work in overprint preview all of the time as it's not good on resources and can be a bit slow at times when scrolling etc. It's impossible to get a handle on the asthetics of the layout when the display is so terrible. I'm not sure if this forum allows screenshots? Let me know and I'll post one.

    Thanks again.

  • January 13, 2010 at 3:13 pm #54439
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I'm afraid your issue may be confined to your system rather than InDesign, can you post your computer specs and operating system?

    Sorry for the long-winded explanation – it's a fairly common question to which 99% what I've said is the answer. And seen as it's a forum other users may find the thread and hopefully that will help them.

    You can post screen shots – you just need to host them somewhere like imageshack or photobucket or similar and press the icon that has the “tree” in it when you're posting, copy the URL into the pop up box and say ok. Probably not best to go over 640 x 480 for your image size if you're posting, if you need a larger image you can just post the link.

  • January 13, 2010 at 4:17 pm #54441
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hi Hank, here's a screenshot:

    https://www.rustyinplaces.org/graphics/AnTwanChi/Screenshot.jpg (I don't appear to be able to put [img] tags in posts…

    It's just a section as I didn't want to ruin the effect by reducing the size of the screenshot.

    I'm thinking that it might be a graphics card overheating issue as sometimes the antialiasing comes back and all is OK. But not often…

  • January 13, 2010 at 4:36 pm #54442
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I know this is a crazy idea, but I figured I should at least suggest it: I wonder if at some point you are accidentally pressing the keyboard shortcuts to change the View > Display Performance options. Is there any chance of that?

  • January 13, 2010 at 4:42 pm #54443
    Bob Levine

    Participant

    Have you looked for an updated video driver? If you're using the Windows stock driver, check the manfacturer's website to see if they have something available for download.

  • January 14, 2010 at 10:07 am #54455
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I like your crazy thinking, David. Unfortunately not. Also updated drivers to no effect. Thanks for your suggestions anyway, you've been very helpful.

  • January 14, 2010 at 11:50 am #54458
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    What graphics card do you have installed? How much RAM do you have? How much virtual memory have you assigned? Are you on windows or Mac?

  • January 14, 2010 at 12:34 pm #54459
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I have an ATI Radeon 4870 512mb graphics card running on Windows 7 64bit Ultimate. 4Gb RAM, 16Gb Virtual memory on its own drive. I've also tried having part of the pagefile on the C drive.

  • January 14, 2010 at 1:42 pm #54463
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    From my experience:

    I know when I tried to do something similar (not with Windows 7 64 bit) it caused InDesign to crawl. I ended up letting Windows manage my Virtual Memory and Paging Files and it worked a lot better.

  • January 14, 2010 at 3:59 pm #54467
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Strangely enough, completely taking the paging file away from the C drive appears to have done the trick. Everything still goes jagged occasionally, but anti-aliases after a couple of seconds. Thanks for your help. I'll keep you posted if anything goes wrong again!

• Author
  Posts