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Really Need Some Help: psd->PDF nightmare, +K, +love

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Dr.Dealgood
Posts: 2587 - Karma: 1,352
I'm trying to finish my portfolio for grad school. PS is just not my bag, I need to take a course or something.

I'm converting my psd files to TIFFS (no layers) into PDF so they can be printed, problem is I went to pick it up this morning and it looked like utter crap. Even worse than it did on my screen. Not that colors were off or that my calibration is horrid, it's not. But fonts are not smooth, images super pixelated, etc.

The other issue is some of my work is in large format TIFF files (like30"x42"), when I shrink them down (no matter what I try to do) they end up looking not so nice.

I'm a total n00b at this business and navigating the myriad of online tutorials trying to get the right information that I can understand is nightmarish.

So... can anyone help me out, in any way? +K or something better depending on what I can get.

Thanks guys!
Jan 15 2014 3:38PM
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,313
You are entering a whole wide world of variables.

Have you tried printing directly from Ps?
Jan 15 2014 4:29PM
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Dr.Dealgood
Posts: 2587 - Karma: 1,352
No, but I may just resort to that. Issue is I don't have a printer, but at this point in the game I may just go get one and print it myself and then have Kincos bind it.

An awful world of variables indeed...

Any ideas on the TIFF issue? My photos look great full size, but no matter how I try to shrink them they end up looking awful. Am I just pushing them past their limits?

As you can tell, I am lost in a very dark forest.
Jan 15 2014 4:32PM
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Balto
Posts: 25985 - Karma: 4,404
I have never heard of printing photos from a PDF, why not just print the tiff?
Jan 15 2014 4:33PM
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Dr.Dealgood
Posts: 2587 - Karma: 1,352
Minorly absurd, I agree.

It's the result of the situation I'm in--I have no printer and the closest place to me able to do it is Kincos and they keep asking for PDF. I am, at this point, assuming it's laziness. But I could be wrong.

I jacked up the settings in Acrobat X so on-screen my quality isn't falling off.

Trying to get my large shots to fit onto less than 8.5 x 11 is nightmarish for me. In the past I always sent my TIFF files out to be printed by MPrint or ProDPI on larger sized papers.
Jan 15 2014 4:42PM
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,313
Try 'Press Quality' in pdf, to my knowledge that is the highest quality setting in the .PDF file format.
Jan 15 2014 4:49PM
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Dr.Dealgood
Posts: 2587 - Karma: 1,352
Yea, it seems your correct.

Looking at the settings though they're pretty much identical to what I manually changed them when I created the PDF.

I'll give it another go.

In the meantime, Lawrence (or anyone), any tips on downsizing my large TIFF files? Without degrading quality?

FYI--some of these were shot as TIFF/JPEG and then imported and saved as TIFFs. Others were shot in RAW. Would I be better of going back to Lightroom and scaling down in there? It'd be a nightmare because I've exported my whole catalog from Aperture and lost my file structure so finding stuff will be a real bear. And I figured PS could do it no problem, but ... apparently there is a problem.
Jan 15 2014 5:04PM
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Laurent.
Posts: 10056 - Karma: 25,313
If your Tiff's are RGB maybe try converting to CMYK before converting to PDF.

-also if the text is black: Set black (K) at 100% and CMY @ 0%.

-convert text to shapes.

-merging raster layers.

Those are things I imagine might influence the file during conversion. I'm sorry I almost never save in .PDF so my knowledge is limited in this subject.
Jan 15 2014 5:14PM
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Dr.Dealgood
Posts: 2587 - Karma: 1,352
It's absolutely fine, the help is hugely appreciated. PDF is a wonky format for me as well.

Those are the things I've been finding as I comb other sources, so I'll go through and make those changes and see what happens.

All my TIFFs are sRGB, so I'll see how switching to CMYK goes...



Jan 15 2014 5:24PM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5074 - Karma: 43,034
Give Kincos the original file and have them print it. My local one runs everything through photoshop anyway.
Jan 15 2014 8:12PM
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DrZoidberg
Posts: 5675 - Karma: 4,269
What's the size and resolution and that sort of thing of the original? And is there some sort of scaling going on, like scaling to an 8x10? Printers like 300dpi right?
Jan 15 2014 9:56PM
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