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Question

InDesign catalog translated to Spanish pixilates images when exporting hi-quality PDFs for print

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 13, 2023
4 replies
1088 views

My title pretty much sums up the issue we're having. I've been commissioned by a former supervisor of mine to create a catalog of the their products. Once completed, they sent the packaged files I created for them and sent it off to a service for translation. Everything looked fine. Except when I'd attempt the create high-quality PDFs for printing, the majority of the product images look pixelated. Not all, but the majority. This happens even if I choose High-Quality Print for the PDF.

Does anyone have a reason why this could be happening and how to fix it if so? Thank you!

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

@daniellei4510 said:
"… I solved the issue by simply copying and pasting the images from the English version of the catalog to the Spanish translated version that was supplied to the translators as a packaged folder."

Thank you very much for this statement. So what happened could be at the translation service's side.

I doubt it has to do with packaging an InDesign document.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

daniellei4510

Author

Community Expert

That would certainly make the most sense, now that you mention it. I can't imagine a reason InDesign would downsample images as a matter of course without informing the user of this in the process.

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E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Unfortunately - InDesign can unwittingly resample images on export to PDF without informing you.

Here's an example of how it upsamples. I think I submitted an article on that website before about how images could be downsampled or upsampled, can't remember which
https://creativepro.com/flattening-fun/

Anyway - it can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi @Joel Cherney ,

thank you very much for your reply. I fully agree.

What I have to add:

One could check if the resolution of pasted images ( or placed PDFs or EPS files which can contain also image pixel data of various resolutions ) are good enough; with data types where no effective PPI will be shown in the Links panel. Simply export a PDF where downsampling is disabled and run a preflight check with Acrobat Pro on the exported PDF. On an individual basis you can also use Acrobat's Object Inspector to get the effective PPI values measured.

The other way, now with InDesign, is to create a specific preflight profile in InDesign that flags all image data on the document pages with an effective resolution that is above a certain threshold, let's say above 5 ppi. That would also include checks on image data inside of placed PDFs or EPSs and image data that was pasted. You will see an error on every image on the document pages; InDesign's preflight will give details on the exact effective PPI on every flagged image, linked or not.

@daniellei4510 , if you are interested we can get more into details.

I also wonder how you fixed the issue exactly. Did you link and place new image files for the ones that were showing as lowres in the exported PDF? Why did you do not do this in the first place? Or did you simply copy/paste the pixel data again?

So I'm not sure why you had the issue with packaging.

Still, it's unclear for me what your workflow was. You mentioned a translation service. Did you perhaps get back an IDML file from the translation service that contained lowres image data of the pasted images where highres image data was before? And after you worked with that document and exported it to PDF you noticed the lowres images? That would perhaps mean that something went wrong when the translation service worked on the IDML file.

You see, I'm a little confused.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

daniellei4510

Author

Community Expert

Thanks, Uwe...

Since the catalog was relatively small with only a few images involved per product section, I solved the issue by simply copying and pasting the images from the English version of the catalog to the Spanish translated version that was supplied to the translators as a packaged folder.

As I mentioned, I only use InDesign an average of once a year if that, so every time I DO have to use it's like learning it all over again. But it was an easy 20 minute fix once I had determine the packaing process was downsampling the jpegs and pngs.

There were no issues with images that were inserted into the catalog using the Place command. Which I should have done with all the images involved. To further complicate matters, I put the catalog together remotely, with assets emailed to me by the client over a period of about two months, while doing everything in the mean time designing t-shirt logos for their bowing team, creating new logos, creating graphics for a 6-foot backlit sign for their upcoming tradeshow, to sediting about 280 crappy photographs provided the the crappy photographer they hired, etc. In retrospect, the InDesign project was a piece of cake except for the downsampling issue.

Fortunately, the client was a former manager of mine who I worked for four years ago and he's a pretty laid back guy, despite the numerous deadlines involved and the last minute issue with the catalog. So things went relatively smoothly otherwise.

Anyway, I'm sure it will be another year or two before I have to work with InDesign again, if at all, and by then, remembering how to remove hyphenated paragraphs, how to wrap text around images, etc., will require opening up YouTube videos all over again. In addition to making it a point to PLACE files rather than copy and paste them whenever possible.

Thanks again for your help! The catalogs are off to the printers, and I've sent them their final invoice. So unless they want me to continue editing the 100 or so product images I still haven't gotten to, or assist them with their new web site should they be in need of those images going forward, this is all behind me now.

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Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Maybe links are missing?

daniellei4510

Author

Community Expert

It wasn't the linked files. When the Package was created, it downsampled pasted images. My issue has been solved. Thanks!

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Joel Cherney

Community Expert

I'm glad you resolved your issue to your satisfaction, but your understanding of what caused this issue is incorrect. I'm not trying to lecture you or score You're Wrong! Internet Points or anything; I'm just thinking of all of the people who might find your posts via searching the forums and come to an incorrect conclusion about what is going on with their own files and images.

So: packaging an Indesign file will absolutely not downsample anything. The correct workflow when handling images in InDesign is to place an image file via File -> Place. That way, InDesign can store a low-res preview in the .indd file, and the full resolution image file can remain separate.

When you package, the linked image file will be included in a Links folder. When you export a PDF (which you can do as a part of the Package operation), you can choose to leave the resolution of linked images untouched, or to downsample to a lower resolution, in the PDF Export Options.

It is possible to paste a high-resolution image into InDesign, but there's no real way to know for sure in InDesign if you've successfully done so. If you Place an image, you can always see its resolution in the Links panel or the Info panel. If you select a pasted image, you don't see any resolution information there. If any downsampling occurred in your image-pasting workflow, I would imagine that it happened when the image was initially copied to the clipboard, leading to a screen-res image being pasted into InDesign.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi @daniellei4510 ,

are you using the default PDF Export preset [High Quality] for printing?

This one is not suitable for PDF workflows that aim at printed material for offset printing.

Instead talk to the printing company what preset you should use with all the details.

To avoid pixelated images you could use the default preset PDF/X-4 and turn off image downsampling.

Make a custom named preset out of it.

Also preflight your document and check if all placed and linked images and graphics are still linked and all links are up-to-date. It could be that transparent elements on the page enforce a lowres output to PDF when transparency is flattened at output stage. So best make sure that transparency is not flattened or if that cannot be avoided the flattening parameters allow highres output. If you are using the default [High Quality] preset without changing anything, note that the flattening process for transparency is not using high quality, but only medium quality. This could be the core issue.

Without having a sample document with all placed and linked assets at hand it's impossible to tell where the exact issue lies.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

daniellei4510

Author

Community Expert

Consider the issue solved, Uwe. I determined that when I packaged the file, it worked fine with Placed images, but turned pasted images into low-res jpegs. I assume there's a way to avoid that going forward, but I probably use InDesign an average of once a year, so I'm not too concerned. 🙂 In any event, I solved the issue by replacing the low-res results manually. The catalog was only about 30 pages, so it wasn't too much of a pain to fix things.

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