distiller- poor quality

[sidewaysup]

Hello, I have seen some pdf docs that had very nice pictures/ graphics in them. however I tried to convert a vector image using distiller the other day and it came out very badly. any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

thanks

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pu...sp?id_=1690997

[sidewaysup]

Hello, I have seen some pdf docs that had very nice pictures/ graphics in them. however I tried to convert a vector image using distiller the other day and it came out very badly. any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

thanks

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pu...sp?id_=1690997

[alexbozhenov]

...in the Distiller. Maybe you set quality for images at 96 dpi?

It is hard to advice somewhat when I don't see the source file and your settings...

Can your describe your issue more deeply? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

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alexander



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ALBO Design

[sidewaysup]

I just tried it again, 1200 dpi, seems to be my only option, not sure what else to tell you, I'll try to post the pdf as an attachment, but it will probably be too big.

[alexbozhenov]

OK, don't forget to set in the Xara settings "DPI when auto generated" to 300 dpi. Xara make bevels with this resolution... Your settings was 96 dpi.

but when you are use bevels etc. you'll never get pure vectorial PDF or EPS. it's converts to raster images.

so, I made a bitmap image (300 dpi) from your logo and leave "Today's Best Hits" as contour (do not rasterizing it) and then I made a PDF (600 dpi). this file is much less than "natural" (source) Xara's file and quality of the logo is much better.

the second way is make a Xara EPS file, open it in PhotoShop and covert to CMYK. it will be very good quality also.

I hope it will help.

Good luck!

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alexander



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ALBO Design

[Beth]

Hi

First thing to try would be to change your display settings in Acrobat itself. Do a control K and select Display from the list. THen make sure that all the smoothing items are turned on except the cool type. This will dramatically affect how vectors are displayed in pdf. I have no idea why it is turned off by default. (since I send PDF proofs all the time, I am always telling my clients to do this).

The easiest way to create the PDF is to use the acrobat distiller instance in the printer dialog box. Just select it rather than your printer. If you check the properties of that (prop button right beside the printer name), you can control quality. I think by default the conversion settings (in PDF settings tab) are set to e book. You may want to use print or another setting depending on what you want the PDF for. I made my own setting that is kind of a cross between the printer and screen settings. Down sampling should never be set higher than 300 for your photos and halftone. Black and white bitmaps at 1200 dpi is more than sufficeint as well. Prolly the biggest thing is to have all fonts embedded and have subset at 100%.

Hope this helps,
Beth

[chuckpa]

Hey sideways....

Check out this tutorial from the folks at Xara on creating PDF files from XaraX:

http://www.xara.com/support/xarax/hints/

It's a nice little troubleshooting guide.

[alexbozhenov]

I agree with Beth Mohler, but look at attached pic. My bitmapped logo is above, the Xara's one is below. I made screenshot from Acrobat (Beth's setting are "on"), magnified at 1200%. Do you see the difference? :

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alexander



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ALBO Design

[roman]

Every special Xara function like BEVEL, or SHADOW is producing bitmaps which are not possible to export to postscript as vectors. So they are exported as bitmaps.. I think this is the problem you have.

[Beth]

Wow Alex. I am so impressed you took the time to illustrate the difference. I would love to be able to use your graphic to show clients. Pretty please with sugar on top >8-)

I am not sure I understand what you are saying Dmagician. But Xara is not actually exporting these images when you make a PDF. PDF is kind of a strange but wonderful beast. The nomral way to make them is to create a print file (.ps or .prn) and distill it through distiller. A print file is the nothing more than the text version of what is sent to your laser printer etc. You can open it up and it is a bunch of gobbldy goop...but it is in a language that your postscript printer understands. Printer language so to speak. What distiller does is graphically represent this data. Sort of the same way your printer graphically prints the page. And the acrobat reader works very similar to an html browser. It interprets the code and shows you the text/illustrations whatever.

The method I described above for creating the pdf is actually creating the printfile and using distiller to make the file. It is just done in the background so you dont know that it is being done. It makes it alot easier for people to understand (and do) this then for them to actually create a print file, open distiller and distill.

There are some other bastardized ways of making PDF (like PDF writer) but they are not recomended.

The Xara effects are actually vector and will remain that way until exported or converted within the program to bitmap. Whether or not they get translated to poscript well is another matter.

Regards,
Beth