Participant

Question

Rendering pdf from placed images larger than 32,000px

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
November 30, 2023
3 replies
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I am using InDesign to create a massive printed graphic (26 x 36 ft). I have placed a .psb file that is about 54,000px across - and it is unstable in its placement. Despite looking correct on screen, when I export a print pdf from InDD - it shifts where its sitting - and I just can't get it to stay where it appears to be.

So I tried placing the large raster image @ 32,000px in an .Ai file (which can handle big images), placing this .Ai file in InDD. At this resolution I can export a print pdf. When I try to do the same thing, but with an image of 40,000 px in the .Ai file - it either crashes, or creates an incomplete pdf with the raster image only partially rendered. It seems like there's a limit on the size of image InDD can handle (this classic 32,000px wall that exists for raster images).

Does anyone know if there's a way for InDD to handle images beyond 32,000px? Thank you

This topic has been closed for replies.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @chrisb4712334 , What is the size of the page you are placing the .psb on? InDesign has a 216" limit, but PDF has a smaller 200" limit, so if you try to export an ID file with a larger dimension than 200" the PDF would get clipped on the export.

Do you have the shifting problem if you work at a 25% scale—set the document page size to 108" x78", Export at the same size, and have the printer print at 400%?

Here are the limits:

chrisb4712334Author

Participant

Thanks very much for all of your thoughts everyone. Rob - you're right on about the sizing - and this is the approach we've taken - designing to about 78 x 108 in Ai and InDD. And though all comments are correct that for a billboard - that 72dpi is plenty. This is a very unique product - a floor map - where folks can view it from afar, but also right up close. There is a massive amount of vector content (two .ai files worth) on top of the raster background. And they are big vector files - very resolute rivers and lakes and roads and labels etc. So the whole thing is a grind.

All I know from testing is that it can render a print pdf when the total raster-background size is 30-32K pixels (baked into an .ai file), as soon as I make a single file Ai file with a 40K pixel image - the render fails. If I cut the native 54K pixel image in two and place two .ai files side by side - the render also fails. And I had begun this by simply placing a psb file that was 54K across - but this was where it mysteriously shifted by 1/4 or 1/2 inch in the rendering - despite being placed precisley where it should have been.

Sorry to present such a muddle of a problem.

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

How is the floor map being installed? I would assume it is being printed on vinyl specially made for floor graphics installations. The roll vinyl is available at widths only so wide. Obviously the whole thing will have to be installed in strips or panels. It can't be printed or installed in just one piece.

With material width limits in mind, is it possible to divide the map up into smaller segments?

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

Does anyone know if there's a way for InDD to handle images beyond 32,000px?

It has been a very long time since I worked at anything like that scale, but the printers and signmakers I was working with echoed the advice that was typically handed out here in a previous version of this forum. The typical advice here was "use a ten-to-one ratio" while the signmakers had me go into a little bit more mathematical detail, figuring out the relationship between a single pixel and the maximum possible resolution of the print.

I'm thinking about your image that is 54000 pixels across and 36 feet across... are you really printing a 36'x26' image at around 130ppi? Sorry, maybe someone who has done large-format work in the last decade should be posting this. James? I had to search "grand format printer" in order to understand what you're talking about, and now I'm looking at a brag sheet for a EFI VUTEk that will print 126 inches wide at 1000 DPI. I'm impressed! But it does look like the industry-wide max width print path is well under 26 feet.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Yeah, 10:1 should be perfectly sufficient - especially if it's a banner high on the building...

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

A 54,000 pixel wide image is pretty "heavy" for a large format RIP to handle. For photo imagery on things like vehicle wraps, banners, etc. 72ppi at full size should be good enough. A 36'/432" wide graphic at 54,000 pixels wide works out to 125ppi.

What kinds of elements are going into this design? Is it just photos? Or is it a combination of photo imagery, graphical elements and text? If the latter is involved you should be creating the layout either in Illustrator or InDesign using vector-based objects whenever possible. This will allow any photo-based elements to be set at 72ppi (or lower) resolution yet the vector-based elements will be output at the printer's maximum resolution. Using a mix of raster and vector objects will make the print job look better and be output more efficiently. Some folks try to do everything just in Photoshop and that's just not a good practice.

Regarding working at scale: yes, it is common for grand format service bureaus (billboard printing companies) to request artwork sized at 10% of actual size. That's partly to get around the standard 227" X 227" max canvas size in Illustrator and InDesign. The artwork can be scaled to full size in the RIP. Photo imagery has to be produced at a similar scale. A billboard ad created at 1" = 1' scale with photo imagery set at 300ppi will work out to 25ppi at full size. That might seem coarse, but it's not bad if you're viewing the ad from a moving vehicle on an Interstate highway.

My very cursory & brief review of online quote generators for billboard printers is exactly in line with exactly what @Bobby Henderson says here. 72dpi print output is "high resolution" for a bunch of them, and they all suggest initial Photoshop settings of 720dpi for the exact reasons he points out above. I also found some houses offering eye-wateringly high resolutions - e.g. a 3.2-meter-wide print path at 2880dpi, but that was "trade show graphics," not billboards. Those prices were much higher, of course.

100% of the billboard printers I looked at advised that anything wider than Some Number of Feet (it varied, from 10' to 16') would be printed in strips and heat-sealed together.

100% of the billboard printers I looked at had file submission guidelines for files (usually PDF and TIFF) produced by Photoshop and Illustrator.

0% of them had similar guidelines for InDesign. Just for laughs, I have to include that one out of five billboard printers whose offerings I reviewed gave formatting instructions for submitting PDFs made from Canva.

Lastly, 100% of the pricing FAQs and PDFs that I reviewed last night had some bit that said "Unsure about resolution or file format? Please contact us before finalizing your artwork!"

It's really that InDD just won't render a print pdf from placed big-pixel images.

The only potentially meaningful response that I can figure out for this is that the only useful place to post about bugs or feature requests is the InDesign Uservoice.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Can't you split it into parts and place side-by-side?

Or even a grid with much smaller pieces?

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

It's going to have to be printed in strips anyway; I think Grand Format maxes out at ten or twelve feet wide.

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