Seattle InDesign User Group Home Meeting Summary Archive

Meeting Summary

InDesign and Ouput
Tue, Mar 10th, 2009 at 6:30 PM
Adobe University
Event Details

Output means more than print, these days. So three of our members presented just what that means to us users.

Gregg Hill: How To Output Vehicle Graphics
• showed a variety of large vinyl graphics, applied with a squeegee
• vehicles, trade show graphics, guitars, wall decorations, airplanes
• InDesign: car templates available at 1/20 scale. When designing at smaller scale, you need to be careful with shadows and gradients. Or you can take a photo (straight-on is important) of the vehicle, and trace the shape to make your own template -- measure the wheel base for size ratio.


Rob Cotton and Don Kincl: What Printers Really Want
[aka How to make your printer happy]
• Communication: give clear instructions
• Pull bleeds
• Include all links (if you make changes after packaging the file, re-package)
• Include all fonts
• Make sure your pagination is accurate so creating the Printer's spreads is easier
• No lo-res images
• No bounding boxes around images (solid white backgrounds where it should be transparent). Placing PSD files helps avoid this.
• Dielines -- Either call them out as a spot color or put them on a separate layer. Make them overprinting. Clearly communicate that they are non-printing.
• Accurately measure panels for folds. Typically, panel widths should vary by 1/8th inch
• Remove unused guidelines, remove unnecessary layers
• Clean up the swatch palette -- ‘Select All’ unused colors, delete
• Set colors correctly: use spot or CMYK colors purposely. If you have too many spot colors in your file, you can manage via the Ink Manager, or delete and replace with the correct spot color
• Set rich blacks correctly and consistently (different printers have different preferences). Can proof via the Separations Preview.
• Ask your Printer for their Color Profiles and Press Profiles
• CS4: Live Preflight. Can customize profiles, can get profiles from your print vendors

kEvin Friberg: Overview of different ways to Output from InDesign
Export: ...

PDF:
• Create/use PDF presets (trick that Colin shared: hold Shift, select the PDF preset you want to use, and it jumps straight to PDF creation)
• PDF/X-1a: only use when you've talked to your printer, and everything is final in your file. You take responsibility for any changes to the file.
• PDF/X-3: similar to PDF/X-1a, allows RGB, Lab colors
• PDF/X-4: more advanced than PDF/X-3
• Can add hyperlinks, bookmarks, page transitions (be sure to click appropriate checkbox to include those items when exporting PDF)


HTML
• Has limitations; won’t directly create a perfect website with a layout that matches your native file


SWF
• Convert InDesign type into Flash type before exporting -- it will work better on the Internet
• Has page-turning transitions, includes hyperlinks


XFL
• Native Flash file
• Everything that Flash has


INX
• Used to revert to an older version of InDesign
• Nice way to clean up 'icky' InDesign files (that were messily converted from other software)


IDML
• Human-readable XML

Steve Laskevitch
• Ask the printer for their color profile
• Customize Proof Condition: Choose profile. View > Proof Setup > Custom
• PDF Export: Output > choose Color conversion
• Can apply suite-wide color profiles via Bridge (but be careful)

new feature in Photoshop/Illustrator CS4: View > Proof Setup > Color Blindness


Many fabulous prizes were won.

Thank you

Many thanks to the brave and knowledgeable folks who enlightened us this evening:
Gregg Hill
Rob Cotton and Don Kincl
kEvin Friberg



Steve Laskevitch
Chapter Representative
Seattle InDesign User Group
seattle@indesignusergroup.com