Help with importing Images

[Jasper105]

I am trying to create a product manual to provide details of our product line Cup sinks for laboratories. when importing the images of the product jpeg format comes in just fine. The problem has occured taking 2d drawings of the product saving them as PNG format and importing in i am getting over pixelated images and really looks bad what can i do to fix this issue it is holding me back from getting this job done. 

[John T Smith]

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[Jasper105]

Adobie Indesgin

[Randy Hagan]

If you have high-quality 2-D drawings, you may want to consider massaging them in Adobe Illustrator. Or for that matter, exporting them directly from your 2-D CAD software into vector formats which are compatible for import/placement into InDesign. Either course of action will get you much better results.

I've worked with several catalog clients in the electronics and electro-mechanical industries, translating printed mechanical drawings and 2-D CAD files into Adobe Illustrator .ai native files and .eps (Encapsulated PostScript) formats. Either file format can be seamlessly imported and placed within InDesign layout files with great fidelity and, if needed, precise technical accuracy with additional effort. Many high-end 2-D CAD programs can also export either one or both formats from the original files for high-quality import/placement into InDesign.

Do you have access to the original 2-D files? And, even better, access to the 2-D CAD program(s) that generated them? Or, failing that, access to someone working with the relevant 2-D CAD software who can help you?

Hopefully, this is a minor issue that can be overcome with some relatively minor workflow adjustment.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Jasper105]

Sorry i thought i would get a reply to my Phone I am currently using fusion 360 for my Cad program, It does have a few ways to export but it is limited to PDF - DWG - DXF or lastly CSV. The PDF really comes  out looking great however it is the process i take to remove the part of the 2D drawing that i need,via Adobie PDF edditor.  Here is a  LINK to Cup sink model  you should be able to download it in multiple formats from the portal for fusion. I am at a complete halt sadly becuase i am not sure what to do to get these wonderful looking drawings into AI sucessfully. All your help is greatly appreciated. 

[Randy Hagan]

I'd test to be sure, but I would suspect that your generated PDFs would be using vector-based graphics and would be the best solution to place directly within InDesign.

Failing that, you should be able to import AutoCAD .dxf interchange and .dwg drawing files into your Illustrator CC application, though you may find that you need to back-save those files into earlier version formats to get all best results you're looking for. Once you get them into Illustrator, you'll be able to save those Illustrator-native .ai and/or Encapsulated postscript .eps files which you can then place as vector graphics directly into InDesign.

Either course of action should get you the results you're looking for.

Good luck. I'm hopeful this will work well for you.

Randy

[Jasper105]

Thank you i will start testing later today I appreciate all your help. 

[Randy Hagan]

Cool. I hope this will work well for you.

Please let me add one more thing, though. When it comes to editing PDF files, you're currently using the best course of action: editing PDF information directly in Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Illustrator can open and edit PDFs, but it has the potential of changing your PDFs you edit in undesirable ways. Those issues deal mostly with processing type information, which may or may not be a big problem for your wspecific use case. Nonetheless, your current workflow of editing PDFs with Acrobat, and its admiittely meager content creation/editing tools, is safer and preferable than using Illustrator.

Now when it comes to massaging your AutoCAD .dxf and .dwg files? Illustrator is the best Adobe tool to process those file formats.

Good luck. We're pulling for you. And if you have any issues with this, please don't hesitate to come back and ask for help. There are a lot of smart folks around here who are happy to lend a hand.

Randy

[Jasper105]

One last  thing i am trying to make a go at using these images in Adobie IN DESGIN utilizing a template for ease of building the Book with the content. It was here that i realized when i was importing the drawings as Jpeg or PNG format most of them came in just fine as however beings the smaller cup sink W39021 is truly the smallest item. Could scaling it bigger help it not be so pixelated when i create a PDF drawing using my Fusion Software? My process was within Fusion software create PDF drawing using Models created. Then after exporting PDF open up in Adobie pro to arrange then  cropped and saved as PDF PNG OR JPEG and i have found all formats to apear pixelated. Thus thr reason to see if i could fix them in illustrator 2020 then try and import into My template within Adobie IN desgin 

[Randy Hagan]

As long as your resulting PDFs are translating your graphic content into vector graphics rather than pixel images, scaling will not be an issue. I believe that's the case with Fusion 360.

Depending on your situation, I might suggest you not only convert a few critical illustrations this way. If you're going to come back to this kind of work in the future, having all your illustrations as vector graphics will pay handsome dividends in future projects.

[Jasper105]

Thank you this has been truly helpful i will research more of what fusion has to offer in this direction. And yes i will have to come back to this again in the future as price changes and desgin changes, By getting all this in order will most surely give me a better approach as future revisions. 

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Keep in mind that InDesign displays a preview proxy for linked files, and you can’t necessarily judge output quality from the preview proxy even if the format is vector. View>Display Performance>Typical Display would preview linked vector lines like this:

If you export the page to PDF and zoom in to over 400% in Acrobat you will get a better view of the actual print output.

And Acrobat’s Page Display Preferences also affect the Acrobat preview but not the print output—Smooth line art unchecked:

[Jasper105]

Wow thank you i will definatly give this a try could be i was taking the actual screen out put as the final proof. 

[Willi Adelberger]

Don't use PNG, usd PDF/X-4 and if you use EPS from the drawing program it is at least better than PNG.