Image appears to scale when zoomed in/out in acrobat?

[paule_PWS]

I've highlighted in yellow the image.  At certain zooms is looks ok then looks distorted on others.

Is there any reason for this. it doesn't do this for other images on the page.

[Mike Witherell]

What filetype is it?

What effective resolution is it?

What were your export settings to export the PDF file?

Are you asking this question about zooming in InDesign or Acrobat?

[paule_PWS]

A PDF

LOW RES PDF

ATTACHED EXPORT SETTINGS (PROVIDED BY AN EXTERNAL PRINTERS  - COULD BE THE ISSUE)

ZOOMING IN ACROBAT

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

The export settings are just fine if that's what they asked for (although not sure why you say low-res pdf when these setting are definitely not for that)

However, since they are asking you to turn off Downsampling, if your small images are very large resolution files, they may now be TOO high resolution when scaled down like that, and Acrobat is choking on them a bit.

(also check Acrobat Preferences > Page Display > Show Large Images)

What are the original (pixel) dimensions of your small images? and what are they scaled at in InDesign?

[Mike Witherell]

I'm not sure what the purpose would be of ever setting the PDF export to Do Not Downsample. Seems like you would want 200 or 300 if you want to zoom in on it.

The questions still is: in ID, what is the effective PPI of the placed graphic?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"I'm not sure what the purpose would be of ever setting the PDF export to Do Not Downsample"

As a prepress person I can answer that. The normal "usual" of downsampling to 300 is great for photo images, etc, but can destroy the quality of any rasterized text on a high-resolution output device, especially at smaller type sizes (it becomes "fuzzy and blurry" due to antialiasing of downsampling)*. To avoid this, we always ask for Do Not Downsample so the quality we receive in their PDF is the best possible.

The drawback then, is that some images may come to us at TOO high resolution, which is not normally a problem as our RIPs can handle it easily, but in the OP's case is causing issues with viewing.

* if you ever ordered business cards from a cheap online place that asks for a 300ppi JPG to print from, this is why your cards looks so crappy.

[Mike Witherell]

Good point, and a good reason to not make type that gets rasterized!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Indeed!! ... but I can't begin to count how any times clients will send us something "they made in Photoshop".

Bane of my existance. Ha!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Probably not related, but just showing how erratic PDF can be... I have a fairly simple table chart in Word that, when exported to PDF using every available option and setting, looks horrible in the viewer. Broken/zigzag lines, background tints only partial, etc. Only when you zoom in to about 300%, or print it, does the table appear normal.

And it's just not important enough a project to work through fixes, but I know I am going to have to explain it to every recipient...