» Overview
» The Size
» Resampling
» Image Files
» Embedding Image Files
» Color Management

High Resolution Images: Overview This section is designed to help your designer provide us with final, correct files. If you have additional questions that are not addressed in this section, please contact your sales representative. High Resolution Images Reproduction The most important factor in a quality reproduction is the final file size. It matters much less how you get to that size. All image files should be 300 DPI and line art should be 1200 DPI at final size. Click on the options on the left.

High Resolution Images:

The Size

What you need to know: The most important factor for a quality reproduction is final FILE size.

A large image scanned at 150 DPI is functionally equivalent to an image half that size that is scanned at 300 DPI. Both will result in a file that is roughly the same size. The illustration below shows two images, one measuring 4 x 6 and scanned at 150 DPI, and the other measuring 2 x 3 and scanned at 300 DPI. Notice how the document size in the lower left corner of each image is exactly the same: 1.54 megabytes. These two images contain the same amount of digital information. Once you know how much information is needed for quality reproduction at a given size, you can adjust the DPI on your scanner to capture that amount of information.

High Resolution Images: Resampling It’s easy to resample an image using Photoshop's “Image Size” feature; however, there are a couple of things you need to know. It is ALWAYS OKAY to resample from a large image to a smaller one. Photoshop simply throws out the extra pixels and an image will appear smaller and every bit as sharp as it was before. It is NEVER A GOOD IDEA to resample from a small image to a larger one. In this situation, Photoshop adds pixels to the image. The program assigns color to these new pixels based on the color of neighboring pixels. This always results in an image that is blurrier than the original, as shown to the right.

High Resolution Images:

Image Files

Tiff vs. EPS 

The most important thing to know about these two formats is that EPS files can usually be scaled up and down without any loss of clarity, while TIFF images will go fuzzy or become pixelated if they are scaled up too far. TIFF is a bitmapped format, which means that all the information it contains is in the form of a grid of defined pixels. EPS is a vector format, which means that the information it contains can be described logically using mathematics and/or a programming language.

Acceptable formats…

TIFF: When preparing files for print reproduction you should almost always produce TIFF images. This is a bitmapped format which contains a "map" of colored pixels and no vector information.

EPS: The only other format you should consider for print reproduction is EPS. If you need to save a clipping path in an image you will use EPS because this format can contain bitmapped information as well as the vector that defines the clipping path. Also, when you export artwork from an illustration program such as Illustrator or Freehand the best format to use is EPS.

Regardless of the format being used, remember to save your files using CMYK color rather than RGB.

AVOID USING…

JPEG: Primarily used for photographs, "JPEG" is one of the two common file formats used on the web. It is a compressed format so information is lost during compression. If you have a JPEG file you want to use in print, open it in Photoshop and select "Image->Mode->CMYK Color (or Grayscale)".

GIF: Another popular format on the web, GIF is a lossless format ("lossless" means you don't lose any information when you compress the file) but it is not an ideal format for print.

BMP: The standard Windows image format, BMP is lossless and can work acceptably well for pictures or graphics. It's an uncompressed file format, so it takes up lots of disk space and is not recommended for print reproduction.

High Resolution Images:

Embedding Image Files

Page layout software gives you the option of embedding image files in your main document or leaving them as "linked" files. We strongly encourage you NOT to embed your graphic images. This maintains the maximum amount of flexibility in both your workflow and ours.

However, when you use linked images, it is important to check all your links before you gather files for output. The "Links" options in both Quark and InDesign will help you to identify images that are not linked properly or that are in inappropriate file formats or color modes.

When you submit your gathered files, please include a complete set of laser prints on which you have marked all images that have been scanned for reproduction and a copy of the file directory.

High Resolution Images: Color Management Setting up your color profile, for best results the profiles need to be applied to the images in Photoshop, not in InDesign: When preparing your image files in Photoshop, select from the Edit/ Convert to Profile and choose one of the following from the drop down menu: For GRACoL, Adobe CS4 profile: Coated GRACoL 2006 (ISO 12647-2:2004) For FOGRA coated, Adobe CS4 profile: Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004) For FOGRA uncoated, Adobe CS4 profile: Uncoated FOGRA29 (ISO 12647-2:2004) Note: Users who have already installed recent versions of Adobe Suites or certain Adobe applications may not need to install these profiles. These profiles are already included and installed when you install and update certain Adobe applications. To download the above profiles if you do not have the above profiles in older versions of Adobe Suites. Visit: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=4074&fileID=3792 NEVER set up your files using SWOP (standard web offset profile) when printing with Asia Pacific Offset.