Skip to main content
F
Frits5C99
Known Participant
July 31, 2023
Answered

dotted cross appears on tilted image

  • July 31, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 906 views

I put a tif image on an Illustrator design and tilted it 15 degrees. After making a pdf a dotted cross at 15 degrees appeared on that image (not if it's not tilted). After zooming in far enough on the pdf, it disappeared. I made a low res screen capture of it:

My questions: will this have any effect on the printing in high resolution? (I can't see anything on my own print-out,) If so, what can I do to prevent this? If not so, same question, as I have it to explain it to my clients.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Abambo

    How do you create your PDF file? What is the PDF version?

     

    What you see is Acrobat's tradeoff between speed and accuracy. When being scaled out, instead of showing a very accurate picture, you see a speed optimized screen. The seem you see is because the image has been split into sub-images. This happens, especially when you are using an older PDF file format or when you create the PDF by printing to a PostScript file and distilling that.

     

    When you zoom in, you will see an accurate picture of what a print will look like. However, in some rare cases you will notice a colour shift with some elements.

     

    You can avoid this, when exporting a PDF X/4 format. This format supports transparency and different other goodies, that will avoid splitting up the images. The overall result will be more accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/X

    1 reply

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    July 31, 2023

    How do you create your PDF file? What is the PDF version?

     

    What you see is Acrobat's tradeoff between speed and accuracy. When being scaled out, instead of showing a very accurate picture, you see a speed optimized screen. The seem you see is because the image has been split into sub-images. This happens, especially when you are using an older PDF file format or when you create the PDF by printing to a PostScript file and distilling that.

     

    When you zoom in, you will see an accurate picture of what a print will look like. However, in some rare cases you will notice a colour shift with some elements.

     

    You can avoid this, when exporting a PDF X/4 format. This format supports transparency and different other goodies, that will avoid splitting up the images. The overall result will be more accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/X

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    F
    Frits5C99Author
    Known Participant
    July 31, 2023

    Thanks, Abambo. I already thought it had something to do with the screen output, as I used to have comparable problems with viewing thin lines in pdf's.

    I always made my pdf's by printing to pdf. Then, the pdf x/4 format is not available. With saving to pdf it is, and it works for the problem I mentioned.

    However, with pdf x/4 another problem turns up. Compare the images:

     

    Left an image at 200% with pdf x/4: thin lines hardly visible. The problem disappears at 400% (middle). However (right image), with the old settings at 200% (and also at 100%) it is far better than the x/4 version!

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 31, 2023

    If your file is from Illustrator, you should "save as PDF". https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/creating-pdf-files.html

    In InDesign use File->Export.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices