Blurry PDF created in Indesign using Photoshop links

[Tali27456379ou33]

Hi,

I hope someone can advise me!

I printed a file from Indesign today. The file has about 160 links most of which are PDF and quite a few that I linked Photoshop files to it directly.

All the photoshop files printed blurry - even though I know they are high quality files with good resolution. 

When I looked at the file in Adobe Acrobat it looked 100% clear so I didn't notice anything. 

How should I be exporting the Indesign file? I am using Indesign CC. 

Should I rather save my Photoshop files as Photoshop PDF? Or is this not necessary and it is settings to do with the exporting. 

Please help!

Thanks

[Nancy OShea]

[Moderator moved from Using the Community forums to InDesign.]

InDesign supports these graphic file types.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/graphics-formats.html

For questions related to other products, see the appropriate product forums below.

https://community.adobe.com/

[Peter Spier]

What settings did you use to export the PDF?

In the printer driver did you set Send Data top All rather than Optimized Subsampling?

[Tali27456379ou33]

This is all I did when I exported. 

Adobe PDF Preset: Press quality

Crop marks plus document bleed settings. 

I didn't print the file - assuming that setting you referring to is a print setting? I sent it to a professional printer

[Peter Spier]

The PDF looks good on screen in Acrobat? If you print a sample page to your own printer that came back blurry from the print shop does it look correct?

Did you check the links in InDesign before exporting? If the links are not missing or modified your export settings should give good results, ceratinly not blurry, on a press or digital printer.

Can you share sample page from the PDF that caused a problem?

[Tali27456379ou33]

Yes the PDF looked perfect on screen. 

After it came out blurry, the printer printed one sample page - and that too came out blurry. 

All the links are perfect. 

How should I share a sample page?

As a PDF file - one of the pages?

[Peter Spier]

Yes, in Acrobat you can extract one or two pages and save as a new PDF to post here.

I don't want to accuse the printer of incompetence without more evidence, but it really sounds like thay are opening your PDF in something other than Acrobat to print.

[Tali27456379ou33]

I wouldn't be so quick to think it's the printer although I definitely thought it at first. 

This is because I printed other stuff with them today (from Indesign to PDF with photoshop links) and they came out crystal clear. Thank you for helping me out. 

[Peter Spier]

The images look a little "soft" on screen here and print on my relatuively inexpensive canon  printer as they look on screen. I wouldn't say blurry, just not whart we used to refer to as 'tack sharp" when taking photos in the old days. I am able to read all of the text in the images in my print.

Don't know what the cause might be -- could be that's what the image actually looks like (need to see one of the originals to judge that), but I'm suspicious that Acrobat preflight says they all have a "soft mask" transparency applied. I don't think I've seen that before, and I don't know exactly what it means. Have you applied a blending mode or transparency effect in InDesign?

Maybe someone with better Acrobat analytical skills, like @rob day will chime in.

[Tali27456379ou33]

I checked in Acrobat preflight. They don't seem to have any transparency effects or blending modes applied. Thanks. 

[Peter Spier]

You would have applied theses effects in inDesign, not Acrobat, perhaps unintentionally, so that would be where you would need to check.

That said, I've just done some experimentation using a .psd with a transparent background exported using the Press Quality preset, and I get the same soft mask warnings, so I suspect that's really all that means.

[rob day]

I'm traveling so I can't look at the PDF in AcrobatPro, but if you open AcrobatPro's Output Preview panel and select Object Inspector instead of Separations, you can click on a problem image and get it's output resolution. You might check to see if it's what you expect.

[Eugene Tyson]

You say you printed a file from InDesign and it came out blurry.

I'm confused if you printed directly from InDesign to your desktop printer?
Did you export it as a PDF or print to a PDF? 

If it's a desktop printer did you try printing from the PDF and going to Advanced Tab and select print as image

I'm just not sure how you're exporting or printing the document.

The PDF looks ok - the one with just the text - in the top left corner - I'd have that at least 1200 ppi for print as it's mostly text - or leave it Vector if at all possible.

So your PDF settings would need to be changed to No Compression or similar.

But it completely depends on what you're using the PDF for - if you have crop marks it's usually for print.

Do you need it to be 300ppi? 

What happens if you make the PDF without any compression and print from that.

Best way is using File>Export, by the way, didn't mention that earlier. 

Maybe you're doing this already.

[Laubender]

Hi @Tali27456379ou33 ,

opened your PDF in Acrobat Pro. Technically I see no issue at all.

Are all of the placed images on that page PSD files?

Depending on the printing process the images could be a bit more sharper with a small amount of unsharp masking, but that's not the issue, I guess, when you say that they are printing blurry.

FWIW: The images could have a bit more resolution, perhaps 450 ppi to 600 ppi, because they are showing small text.

But all in all there is no reason why they should print blurry at all.

Here a screenshot from Acrobat Pro:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[rob day]

Hi @Tali27456379ou33 , I agree with Uwe an image with text would need more than 300ppi to be fully resolved. I can see from Uwe's capture the image was downsampled on the Export, what was the starting resolution? Effective Resolution listed in InDesign.

[Eugene Tyson]

That was my sentiment too. Glad we all agree on that one.

[Tali27456379ou33]

Thanks for your reply. All the images on that file were PSD. 

I think that's why I was suprised because on Adobe Acrobat it was extremely clear and the blurriness only showed up when printed. I could increase the resolution. 

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @Tali27456379ou33,

Thank you for reaching out. In addition to the suggestions shared above, you can also try these steps:

• Choose the [High-Quality Print] preset from the Adobe PDF Preset menu when exporting to PDF.
• Ensure the images are not downsampled to a lower resolution than necessary in the Compression area. You can downsample to 300 pixels per inch for print or 72 pixels per inch for online viewing.
• In the Output area, ensure the color profile is set to the appropriate one for your project. You can use the Ink Manager to convert spot colors to process colors if needed.
• If you use Photoshop files in your InDesign document, make sure they are saved at a high resolution and in the appropriate format (TIFF, EPS, or PDF).

Let us know if this helps or if you need further assistance.

Thanks

Rishabh

[rob day]

The gray text in your PSD image is Device CMYK, and is likely outputting as 4-color, so the resolution of the output device's halftone screen (LPI) is going to have an effect.

[Laubender]

Hi Rob,

I agree, but I would be surprised that there is a massive registration problem nowadays…

As Lukas said, we need to know what's the printing process.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[rob day]

Hi Uwe, I was thinking more about the proofing or output device’s screen resolution. If it’s a proofing device outputting to a halftone screen, its maximum LPI resolution could be relatively coarse, which might be more obvious in the small text areas. For example here’s a 100 LPI simulation of the 300 PPI image out of Photoshop where the rosettes are 4-color:

[Lukas Engqvist]

As others have mentioned can you help to disambiguate the term print. Are you sending to a comercial Print shop or is it a printer (device) you have? Do you know more specific if it is printed in offset, inkjet or  xerography (laser printer) or some other method? When you say blurry could you specify is it "soft" or "miss registered"? (A close up of photograph of the print would help). If you are printing the PDF I hope you are printing from Acrobat, or using a RIP (Fiery/ Apogee/ Printergy/ Onyx etc)

If you are expecting high quality line art you may need to exceed 300PPI and make sure that black/grey is black (K or Key) only. Illustrations can be more tricky to print that photographs because Photographs are more forgiving. If you are sending to a comercial printer there may be downsampling happening, but without access to the files it is a little guesswork. 

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @Tali27456379ou33,

Did the suggestions shared above help? Feel free to update the discussion if you need further assistance.

Thanks

Rishabh

[Tali27456379ou33 · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone. 

Thank you for your advice. 

It was a time-sensitive issue so what I did was export all the Photoshop files into JPEGs and then re-linked and re-exported the PDF in Indesign.

I am not aware of technical information so cannot help much on that front with regards to the printing.