Photoshop CS4 and Type

[Prepper]

Is there a new way to preserve type as vector in CS4? My designer sent me files with all the type in PS and at 600dpi instead of our normal 300. He says he saw a training video that said if you made it 600dpi it will be smoother and not rasterized, will be vector like Illustrator. I know, I know, but any chance that there's something new on this front?
I normally take his images with fonts and save as PDF and relink to the PDF in INdesign to keep text sharp as possible but that only works if it has no effects applied in PS to start with.
The 600dpi files he sent me, one 15.5" x 10.5" spread is over 800meg!

Thanks

[kyle]

Text from Photoshop saved as a PDF isn't exactly vector. Without any effects, it is encoded as an image as large as necessary to fill the text area with all of the pixels the color of the text, then that image is clipped by a text clipping frame. As far as sharpness goes, it's just as good as straight type because the edge will be rendered at device resolution, but it won't trap because there isn't a normal vector edge.

If saved as a PDF, there is no advantage to making the image 600 ppi as far as the text is concerned, as long as the type layers aren't rasterized. Even if you apply effects, the appropriate edges are maintained as clipping text. You will only get rasterized type if a faux bold or italic effect is applied, or if the font is not available. Anti-alias settings make no difference when the edges are preserved as clipping text.

If for some reason the type needs to be rasterized, 600 ppi would be better than 300 ppi, but turning anti-aliasing off will increase the sharpness more than doubling the resolution. A large image filled with rasterized type would probably also compress smaller with ZIP or LZW compression if the type is not anti-aliased.

If files are saved with less compatibility options (like preserving Photoshop editing capabilities for PDF's), the files are often much smaller due to the lack of redundancy, but you probably want all of that extra information if you have to mess with the files.

There shouldn't be any case in any context where increases the resolution past a magical point causes anything to change from raster to vector.

[Joe]

If you have text in Photoshop and output a PDF the fill of the text will be an image but if you select the text with Pitstop in Acrobat you will see it selects it as a Clipping textline object. The clipping textline will make the edges high resolution so when you output it, it will look like vector type. Here is a screen shot from Acrobat zoomed in on the type with the clipping textline shown.

There should be no need for 600 dpi raster images from the designer.

[hansman]

If you have text in Photoshop save it as an .eps when the eps option box pop's up chose include vector data. Resolution can be 300 for the raster (photo) data. Place eps in In Design and create a pdf as normal.
This will preserve all vector data as well as enable you to lower the resolution of the entire file to 300.

[Joe]

If you have text in Photoshop save it as an .eps when the eps option box pop's up chose include vector data. Resolution can be 300 for the raster (photo) data. Place eps in In Design and create a pdf as normal.
This will preserve all vector data as well as enable you to lower the resolution of the entire file to 300.

In CS4 that basically gives you the same thing I described above. You end up with a 300 dpi image with a high res clipping path for the text edges. Either way the type still outputs at high resolution.

[Lukas Engqvist]

What colour type on what background.
If antialiasing works really depends on the size, colours (background and text), and fonts.
A small white text on a rich background will allways be a problem in photoshop especially if bodoni or a serif font is used (but you all know that). In those cases a 600ppi will be a definate improvement.

If InDesign is set to downsample at 300ppi in the PDF joboptions, then you will counter all the extra load of handling 600ppi…*so your joboptions also need to have 600ppi.

If it trapps is an issue of trap settings, it can be trapped if the RIP is configured that way.
It is a good Idea to work as you do adding the text in InDesign, it gives more flexibility and better editability. It also means that the photoshop is able to stay in PSD (preferably as an RGB so that InDesign can be the place for Colourmanagement IMO), and you do not have the potential error of wrong PDF settings in the creation of the Photoshop PDF.

[Prepper]

Thanks for the clarification on vector vs. outlines in Photoshop, I was just using the vector term as referring to sharp crisp edges, I learned a little on text in PS. He loves the faux bold button, just talked with him again and he just now realized that that doesn't actually use the bold font like picking the bold version in the font dropdown does, although I'm pretty sure we've covered this lots in our 20+ year working together.

Anyway, your responses verify what I thought, and I learned a little, I do just normally take his .psd's and save them out as pdf so that the type that doesn't have faux bold or italics applied can be as crisp as possible.

Lukas, we have been using RGB into Indesign almost exclusively here for several years, this way we can take our legacy files and convert them upon export from INDD to any cmyk format we may need to at the time or for any other purposes. Files we send overseas have to be done with ISO Coated and ours here are done G7. We do have a lot of reversed out type on rich backgrounds (Caslon 10pt. on rich black background) but that type is in INDD, wouldn't the color of the type (% of color) and the screen ruling be the biggest limiting factors to how sharp it will be on paper, and ultimately press registration?

The designer just likes to create many samples in Photoshop and says it's easier to do it all there in one place and doesn't want to take the time, and doesn't have the time, to recreate it in INDD at the end, and I see his point on that. So I just take those kind of pages and convert them to pdf and relink in INDD before I do the proofs and mockups.

I never do any downsampling as a rule, just kind of as a safety that I know I didn't alter something somehow. Do you all? I would really like to sometimes because of the large files placed in INDD and scaled down to small size, and sometimes many of them, make huge files to us to process.

Thanks again,
Terry

[Joe]

It's like I said, if he makes his files as 300dpi the text will still output at high res, 2400 dpi or whatever your output device is, because of the clipping path of the text. I do downsample all images to 300 dpi, which if there is any text that is pure raster image at 600 dpi or higher it will down sample but it shouldn't hurt the text he is doing in Photoshop because it will not down sample the clipping path. That is, as long as the text isn't getting rasterized somewhere along the way.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Reversed text on rich backgrounds will allways be a problem, even in high end fashion magazenes. If it turns out bad even if you are breaking the advice of experienced people it is called "a bad printer". I would support you in your discussion with the client, you have told him the risk, if he will not listen he has made the choice. There was another thread discussing resolutions, and i posted a screen shot rasterd text of different ppi. Try it and compare, no point arguing thory when it is easy to test.

[Joe]

Reversed text on rich backgrounds will allways be a problem, even in high end fashion magazenes. If it turns out bad even if you are breaking the advice of experienced people it is called "a bad printer". I would support you in your discussion with the client, you have told him the risk, if he will not listen he has made the choice. There was another thread discussing resolutions, and i posted a screen shot rasterd text of different ppi. Try it and compare, no point arguing thory when it is easy to test.

While I agree about the white text on rich black background, because not matter how high res it is it will always be a problem with registration, text from Photoshop is not rasterized if you output a PDF directly from Photoshop. It contains a clipping path that will output the text at the resolution of the output device. Do I recommend it? Nope, but it will work.