13 Replies Latest reply: Sep 2, 2009 11:22 AM by Mike Ornellas RSS

    Will type in an eps be smooth?

    emilycornfield Community Member

      I sent a Photoshop pdf file to my customer's printer in India. I sent it as I usually send files to China, as a  PDF/x-1a, compression zip. (I have been sending art to China this way and it has been coming out fine-they are small hang tags). However, the printer in India replied that the wording appears distorted and to send vector files. He said to send an eps file. Would making the original file into an eps file work? Would the type remain crisp? My Quark and Freehand apps are way out of date and I don't know Illustrator or InDesign (tho I have copies, just haven't learned them yet). Attached is the pdf file I sent. I'd appreciate your feedback as to what is wrong with it, and what I should do here. Thanks!

        • 1. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
          Printer_Rick Community Member

          Emily,

           

          I don't see anything wrong with your PDF.

           

          Sometimes fonts output from Photoshop give printers problems. The reason is the characters are actually clipping masks for image information.

           

          If you save as EPS with vector data included it will have the fonts, so the type should print clean. Perhaps your printer will be able to handle the EPS format better.

           

          Message was edited by: Printer_Rick

          • 2. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
            Community Member

            emilycornfield wrote:

             

            My Quark and Freehand apps are way out of date

            Maybe the printer is out of date as well and cannot handle PDF so your older apps may be extra useful. The type is fine for the most part. Maybe the printer is having issue with the 'go green' and the logo, which are not vector based.

             

            You might ask the printer for a screen shot of what they are looking at.

            • 3. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
              Mike Ornellas Community Member

              Picture 1.png

               

              Sounds like they may not have a Postscript level 3 RIP and/or your fonts are not embedded.

              • 4. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                emilycornfield Community Member

                I couldn't find an indication that fonts were specifically embedded, but in an earlier post last year I was told that the pdf settings I chose this time automatically embedded the fonts. In the past there was a spot in Adobe Acrobat Professional that indicated you could embed fonts...I can't find that anymore. Is there somewhere in both Acrobat and PS pdf that this can be specifically chosen?

                • 5. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                  Printer_Rick Community Member

                  I'm glad Mike preflighted your PDF I failed to do that earlier

                   

                  Your PDF is X-1a compliant when I check it, but I get a glyph width error. Not sure what it means. All the fonts are embedded. As Marion pointed out "go green" is not a font, just image data

                   

                  When I place the PDF in InDesign and export a new PDF/X-1a, the glyph error clears out. You may consider doing that with your PS PDFs in the future.

                   

                  You can also use Acrobat Pro preflight. And in Acrobat, File: Properties: Fonts lists all fonts, you check there whether or not the fonts are embedded.

                  • 6. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                    Mike Ornellas Community Member

                    Embed Subset is garbage.

                    • 7. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                      Printer_Rick Community Member

                      Yes it does cause a lot of headaches.

                       

                      Unfortunately I can't remember the last time I received a PDF with the whole font embedded.

                       

                      Is it possible the get the whole font embedded in a Photoshop output? I know it's possible from ID and AI but I can't find that option in Photoshop.

                      • 8. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                        Printer_Rick Community Member

                        This glyph problem, and the fact that InDesign clears it up, is a little troubling.

                         

                        I made a test file in Photoshop using the same fonts, Franklin Gothic Demi and Franklin Gothic bold. I saved as PDF/X-1a, prefighted in Acrobat and got the glyph error.

                         

                        Then I saved as EPS, and distilled using PDF/X-1a. Very interesting result. No fonts at all - the fonts are converted to outlines.

                         

                        So to answer the OP's original question, the type in the EPS is smooth, and the printer shouldn't have any font problems, because all the text will be outlined. To verify, open the EPS in Illustrator and view as outlines, all the text characters are shapes. Or distill the EPS, open the PDF in Acrobat. You will see there are no fonts, and zooming in, it's evident that the characters are smooth vector shapes.

                         

                        I'm still not sure why Photoshop can't include a decent font output in a PDF (at least with these fonts), and I have no idea why InDesign clears it up.

                         

                        One other thing I should mention about using fonts in Photoshop, and why the result is so different from fonts created in vector applications. As I stated earlier, with fonts in Photoshop the character fills are image pixels. This shouldn't really make a difference, but to a printer it makes a big difference when it comes to trapping. If the text characters need to be trapped to surrounding elements, it requires image to image trapping, which is not at all the same thing as image to vector trapping.

                         

                        Most font output I receive originates from vector based applications. Every now and then I get a Photoshop PDF with fonts but it's a rarity. Usually the Photoshop designs are supplied as flat images.

                         

                        Many times too, I see PSD or TIFF ads placed in InDesign. These have no vector content at all.

                         

                        Since Photoshop fonts can be problematic, it may be an option for the OP to save out a flat image with no vector data. True, the fonts aren't crisp. But I proof and print flat image ads with text all the time, and the result on press is surprisingly good. How good depends on a lot of things - the font, type size, resolution of the Photoshop image, and the line screen used when printing. I am willing to bet that in certain cases, if the vector output and flat image output were printed side by side, it would be next to impossible to tell the difference.

                         

                        With a flat image the type characters do not have as good appearance on-screen. But with a small job like the OP's hang tag, the PDF displays much larger than the print size. Differences between raster text and vector text can be somewhat deceiving. Something else with fonts in Photoshop - they don't display as vector in Photoshop. So a flat image output would actually be truer to the text appearance in Photoshop.

                         

                        Back to the trapping. If it's a flat image, the printer will almost certainly not trap the text, because it's part of the image. But if the type is anti-aliased in Photoshop, the softer edges create a sort of natural trap. Furthermore if the type is by itself on a white background, the soft edges are much more forgiving when it comes to registration on press.

                         

                        If the type is vector, the trapping is questionable. It will only be generated if the printer enables image to image trapping. If he doesn't, there could be a registration issue on press (depending on the colors used).

                         

                        The biggest issue I see every day with text created in Photoshop is 4C black text. The OP may be aware of this problem. It's best if black text is 100K only. But if it is 4C black, registration is easier if the text is image instead of vector.

                         

                        My apologies for rambling on. Mike or Marian may have more insight on some of these matters.

                        • 9. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                          Mike Ornellas Community Member

                          When you deal with Fortune 500 companies and your jobs are a minimum of 100 K, you better make sure your play toy files in Photoshop will have sharp edges. Or, have a good insurance policy and or disclamer...

                          • 10. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                            Printer_Rick Community Member

                            No arguments there. With critical quality jobs you need vector text and logos. They will be a little sharper in the printing, certainly under a loop.

                             

                            And with vector data the printer has a lot more latitude. He can correct 4C black text, and also make 100K text overprint. In a flat image it is a lot more difficult to correct objects (because there aren't any).

                             

                            Not to mention a soft proof with vector looks worlds better than an all raster proof.

                             

                            That being said, vector elements output from InDesign or Illustrator are more reliable than vector output from Photoshop.

                             

                            Take the logo on this job for instance. It is raster in the PDF. It could very well be a vector SO in Photoshop. But vector SOs output from Photoshop end up all pixels, no matter what you do (correct me if I'm wrong).

                             

                            As far as preserving native text in Photoshop, at this point I'm not sure what the better output format is, PDF or EPS. Before this discussion I would have said PDF. But you stand to have this font problem. With EPS all fonts get outlined. I guess something could go wrong when it gets outlined by Photoshop, but I don't imagine the outlined text could get distorted, like with the OP's job.

                            • 11. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                              emilycornfield Community Member

                              Thanks for all this help. I am going to learn InDesign asap. I am confused with the initials used here. What is OP and SO mean?

                              My client is not Fortune 500 and not at all critical....nonetheless, I want to create the best file possible anyway, so all this is a big help.

                              • 12. Re: Will type in an eps be smooth?
                                Printer_Rick Community Member

                                OP - Original Poster

                                 

                                SO - Smart Object

                                 

                                With Photoshop you can paste a vector smart object. It creates a new layer and the content is editable in Illustrator. But for some reason it doesn't output as vector from Photoshop.

                                 

                                In short, Photoshop and vector aren't exactly buddies.