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Why my image is pixilated when printing when the effective ppi is more than 1000?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 19, 2019
2 replies
7655 views

I have this document and it has two logos scaled smaller than original size both logos have actual ppi at 72 and the effective ppi is more than 1000, one is 1017 and the other is 1558. However, the print shop has called saying the logos get pixilated when printing. I am really bewildered of what to do with this and how satisfy printing option. As I learned if effective ppi is more than 300 then it is good for printing, then why mine is reported as not good when it is this high

indesign print

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Correct answer rob day

Unfortunately there is no way to override the resolution of an image when exporting to PDF.

You can turn off down sampling via Color Images>Do Not Downsample, which will export the images at their Effective Resolution. I‘ve seen cases where the RIP still down samples images that are over a threshold, but it doesn‘t seem like the printer would flag something like that. Sounds more like a Package with the links missing.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

Did you send a packaged Indesign file or a PDF? If a PDF then the logos were resampled to the resolution of the PDF, which is probably 300 ppi. This is usually acceptable for photos but a logo will not look as good at that resolution. Unfortunately there is no way to override the resolution of an image when exporting to PDF. You can export just those pages at a higher resolution, then replace them in Acrobat. Or you can make copies of the other images in your document, then scale them so their effective resolution is 300 ppi, then export at a very high resolution, effectively making only the logos very high res.

As Willi said, you would be better off using a vector format for your logos. Vectors will always render at your device's maximum resolution.

rob day

Correct answer

Community Expert

Unfortunately there is no way to override the resolution of an image when exporting to PDF.

You can turn off down sampling via Color Images>Do Not Downsample, which will export the images at their Effective Resolution. I‘ve seen cases where the RIP still down samples images that are over a threshold, but it doesn‘t seem like the printer would flag something like that. Sounds more like a Package with the links missing.

Abambo

Community Expert

I would send in a PDF instead of a package.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

I am wondering why do you use a PNG for a logo in print?

Where do you get it from?

Why PNG?

Logos are usually created in Illustrator and saved as AI or PDF/X-4 and placed as such those into InDesign.

PNG is not reliable for print as it support only in a limited way color management.

The pixelation can result from different causes, mainly in antialiasing, using to low color depth. If you would use AI or PDF it would not cause pixelation.

For a logo your resolution can be indeed way to low, 300ppi is good for images, not for text or geometric forms, there it would be 4 times higher, resulting 16 times higher file sizes.

rob day

Community Expert

PNG is not reliable for print as it support only in a limited way color management.

That was true prior to CC2014, but PNG now has full color management support and can be 24-bit. Photoshop lets you save PNGs with an embedded profile, and InDesign‘s Links panel will show the profile when the CM policy is set to Preserve Embedded.

If you export a page with a 24-bit PNG to PDF/X-4, and check the image in AcrobatPro with object inspector the results will be identical to other image formats like PSD or TIFF.

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