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• • July 12, 2015 at 11:03 am #76524
    Frances Simons

    Member

    Hi all,

    I have a question that I would love to get an answer to after years of working with indd. What is the best practice for placing images, high res large photographs, into a layout going to print. Layout is in tabloid, 11X17 and image is a spread crossover. The native file is a large TIFF and I have JPG about 7 MB. If I make the image actual size in PS at 300 dpi, with no resample, it’s huge of course. what IS the best way to do this?

    Thank you for your expertise.

  • July 14, 2015 at 2:37 pm #76580
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Frances, I’m not sure I understand the question, but if I’m reading it correctly, you’re asking how to get great quality printed results with minimal, manageable file size. InDesign shouldn’t really choke on large TIFF files if your system has sufficient resources, as it will render a lower quality version for display while you work on the document. If you need your linked files to be smaller, you could convert the TIFFs to JPEG files of the same dimensions [or downsample them to the necessary dimensions for your document] with minimal to no loss in quality.

  • July 15, 2015 at 2:46 am #76583
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I would never ever save a Tiff as a JPEG unless it was going to be used on the web.

    Why go from a lossless format to a lossy one?

    Anyway – there’s no need to do anything with your images, simply use file>place and place them as they are.

    Under Window>Info you can select your image and it shows two readings – Actual and Effective PPI (take that PPI and DPI are interchangeable in this instance).

    Actual shows what the image is at it’s actual size.

    Effective shows how the scaling of the image has affected it’s PPI in InDesign.

    For instance a 72 PPI image placed at 24% would be 300 PPI (72/24*100=300)

    If your image PPI is over 300 ppi then don’t worry about say something ridiculous like 947 PPI.

    When you File>Export and choose PDF Print go to compression and you have options for

    Downsample to and choose your desired DPI output
    For images over and choose your desired res to target

    For example
    Downsample to 300
    For images over 350

    This means that any image that is over 350 ppi (say 947 PPI as noted above) is downsampled to 300 PPI for print. Which is more than enough for most lithographic printing, and definitely more than enough for digital printing.

    Any images below 350ppi in the layout are unaffected, that is any image listed under 350 in effective PPI in the Window>Info panel.

    Of course there is lot more to making a print ready PDF – if you have any queries please let me know.

  • July 15, 2015 at 7:55 am #76591
    Frances Simons

    Member

    Thanks you guys. Check, check to all of the above. For my high end print I rarely use jpg. My file size on this particular job will likely be stratospheric. I haven’t had the nerve to look yet. My printer wants effective res at least 300 so dropping these in at 100% makes sense. Just that some of the images cross over and/or full spread backgrounds so at essentially 8.5 x 17 plus bleed, they are big boys.

    Thanks lots.

  • July 15, 2015 at 8:31 am #76593
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    It’s perfectly normal and I’d have no concerns.

    Just to reiterate – jpegs are fine to use – I would never convert a tiff to jpeg – there is no point. Just as if you have a jpeg and it’s hi-res – use it, as converting it to a tiff does nothing to help.

    I never resize my images in photoshop before placing them in InDesign.

  • July 15, 2015 at 9:34 am #76601
    Frances Simons

    Member

    Hi Eugene,

    Rigtho, I never convert a TIF to a JPG unless it would be for digital use. No, that wasn’t a concern but I appreciate your advice.

    Curious about resizing prior to placing in InDesign do you then check (or calculate) your effective resolution prior to placing? For print I mean.

  • July 16, 2015 at 5:28 am #76618
    DCurry

    Participant

    One caveat to be aware of when placing images that have super-high res (like the aforementioned 947ppi example), you will lose sharpening when you let ID downsample to 300 upon PDF export.

    I dislike “soft” images, so I always like to apply my sharpening at the actual size the image will be used. It does take extra time and effort, but to me it is worth it in order to get a better finished product for my clients.

  • July 16, 2015 at 7:48 am #76623
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    You only lose sharpness on images that require sharpening, not all images require sharpening.

    I must say, I lied a bit, when I’m working on images that are supersensitive, like art books, or other things of that nature, architecture things etc. then I will absolutely size the images to fit and sharpen in photoshop prior to printing.

    But for everyday run of the mill images/stock photos it’s hardly worth your while.

    Note, a foggy scene wouldn’t require sharpening, but a glass building would etc.

    ****Curious about resizing prior to placing in InDesign do you then check (or calculate) your effective resolution prior to placing? For print I mean.***

    No – I have a preflight profile setup in InDEsign to check for images that come in under 260 ppi – then I make judgement calls on these images for printing, whether it’s digital, or litho, or screen etc.

    https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/preflighting-files-handoff.html

  • July 16, 2015 at 8:20 am #76633
    DCurry

    Participant

    True, not all images will require sharpening (actually, none of them technically require it), but the majority of them can benefit from it (in my experience).

    I think that most clients wouldn’t know the difference unless they could see a comparison of the same image with and without sharpening. If they see soft images but have nothing to compare them to, then they think they are “good enough.” Put a nice crisp, sharp version next to its unsharpened equivalent and what would most people choose?

    It all depends on what you consider “acceptable” and if “acceptable” is good enough. For me, it’s not, but not everyone is as particular as I am about the end product.

  • July 16, 2015 at 9:11 am #76637
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I absolutely agree with you – technically it’s the correct way to do it – I’m not saying otherwise.

    I’ve tried to convince clients to supply higher res images, and offered to do the sharpening, etc. but there’s a limit to what they will pay and what they think is good enough resolution is nowhere close to what I consider to be high enough quality.

    It depends on clientelle, and if it’s high end art/coffee table book then yes I go the sharpening and correct size route.

    In fact, if InDesign could apply a sharpen filter on output (each one would have to be adjust individually) or maybe you could tag images to be sharpened on output – I don’t know – that would be cool. A round trip to PS and back to layout to apply the touched up image.

    There are scripts for doing this.

    In most instances though I file>place images as supplied, unless customer specifically requests images are sharpened or printed best quality, it’s GIGO.

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