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diatoday
Participating Frequently
June 27, 2023
Question

How to optimize grayscale author photo ingramspark

  • June 27, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1700 views

We are printing a black-and-white book on IngramSpark. The book is all text except for an author photo on the about the author page. The photo was taken with an iPhone, so is high resolution and RGB to begin with. 

To prepare the photo, I used Photoshop. I cropped and converted the photo from RGB to grayscale. My understanding is that Photoshop deletes any color management profiles when it changes a photo to grayscale.

At the 2 inch wide size of the photo, the resolution was 1171 PPI. IngramSpark requires 300 ppi. I I left that high resolution and let InDesign lower it to 300 ppi using the PDF/X – 2002 adobe preset export filter.
->Should I have used  Photoshop's automatic resample feature to bring the PPI down to 300 before placing the photo in InDesign?

I imported the photo to InDesign at same size (2 inches wide). I exported the book using PDF/X2002. Results  in the printed proof from IngramSpark are pitiful. No help from customer service although they did apparently try to help.

->How can I best turn a good RGB smart phone photograph to a good grayscale image when printing a book with IngramSpark? What part should I do in Photoshop and what part should I do inInDesign and how should I export to PDF from InDesign?

Any help will be much appreciated. 

 

    2 replies

    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 27, 2023

    I cropped and converted the photo from RGB to grayscale. My understanding is that Photoshop deletes any color management profiles when it changes a photo to grayscale.

     

    Also, Photoshop does color manage the conversion from RGB to Grayscale, so the Gray profile you choose for the Destination would matter because the destination profile affects the grayscale output numbers.

     

     

     

     

     

    Results in the printed proof from IngramSpark are pitiful

     

    In what way? E.g., Is the output too dark?

    D
    diatodayAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2023

    Hi, Rob,

    I should add that, since this is a text-only book with only one author photo, we are printing at IngramSpark on 50# white or 70# white, not on a matte sheet. I'm confused about why I would choose a dot-gain setting for a digital press like IngramSpark.

    The photo Ingram printed is very dotty. Here is a photo of the result.

    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 27, 2023

    I'm confused about why I would choose a dot-gain setting for a digital press like IngramSpark.

     

    Every output device has a profile—the Photoshop default for offset printing happens to be named Dot Gain 20%. As you can see from the above example the profile you choose affects the output values in the grayscale and the exported PDF’s output values. InDesign always Exports the gray values to the CMYK black plate unchanged, unless you export to something other than Document CMYK.

     

    The noisiness of the output doesn’t have much to do with gray output values. It could be the quality of the original, but is more likely the lowend printing method.

     

    Can you share the photo and the page from the PDF?

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    June 27, 2023

    Rob Day has a comprehensive answer he posts at intervals; you might sift through some similar questions to find it. Look for the classic car photos. 🙂

     

    The short answer, though, is to resize the placed image to no more than about 600 ppi effective, to take some load off of ID and the export process. Extremely overscale images bring nothing to the results except resource hogging and slow processes.

     

    Especially for sparse photos like an author shot, I have had good luck using sGray, with KDP, Lulu and KDP.

     

    Those two steps should take you to a better result. Rob's approach is much more layered; you might want to review it as well. 

    D
    diatodayAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2023

    Thank you, James. I have read Rob Day’s post but didn’t understand how best to apply his advice to this situation. 

    Best,
    Diana
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