Preparing Indesign booklet with .psd graphics for print

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
March 29, 2019
4 replies
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I've created a booklet in InDesign that I want to prepare correctly for printing at my local printers. This file contains .psd graphics that on my print drafts at home look a bit low resolution or cracked... Do I need to embed them or do something to make sure that they will be printed exactly like the originals' high resolution format?

Basically, how to prepare the whole file for printing ensuring that I get the correct fonts, high quality .jpg photos and high quality .psd files in it at the final print?

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Correct answer John Mensinger

antigonepieri wrote
my print drafts at home look a bit low resolution or cracked...

Are you printing directly from InDesign? It would be better to export to PDF and print from Acrobat.

To get good results when printing images directly from InDesign, you must go to the Graphics page of the Print dialog and choose "All" from the Images > Send Data: menu. The default, which for some reason is "Optimized Subsampling," will give you the low-resolution look you're seeing.

John Mensinger

Correct answer

Community Expert

antigonepieri wrote
my print drafts at home look a bit low resolution or cracked...

Are you printing directly from InDesign? It would be better to export to PDF and print from Acrobat.

To get good results when printing images directly from InDesign, you must go to the Graphics page of the Print dialog and choose "All" from the Images > Send Data: menu. The default, which for some reason is "Optimized Subsampling," will give you the low-resolution look you're seeing.

A

antigonepieriAuthor

Participant

Aaaa thank you!!!!!! Now it makes sense! That's why when I see my pdf file graphics are much better than my print drafts... Thank you so much because I was really worried that they might look like that -low quality- in the final booklet from printers.

Jeff Witchel, ACI

Community Expert

The best advice I can give you is call your local printer to ask exactly what they want.

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antigonepieriAuthor

Participant

Thank you!

Derek Cross

Community Expert

If the images have too lower resolution (as outlined by Bob), try and get the original photographs if they are at a higher resolution. If that's not possible, open your ones in Photoshop and enlarge them (Image > Image Size), and then use a little Unsharp Mask. But don't expect dramatic improvements. By the way, you can check the Effective PPI in the InDesign Links Panel.

Work in RGB Color Mode with your images, and link the images in InDesign, don't embed them.

When you export the PDF from InDesign (in the Adobe PDF dialogue box) export the document as separate pages (not spreads) and tick Crop Marks and Use Document Bleed Settings Export Adobe PDF dialogue box. Double check this with your printer.