File formats of choice? Which is best

[hkellogg]

As a faculty member at a university, we have students taking our graphic communications courses from all over campus, many with backgrounds in web. Since we stress the area of print, I have pushed the following philosophy on file formats.

For raster images:
.jpg is acceptable, .tiff is better
All flies should be flattened
You should never place a native format (.psd) into a layout program that is designed for print.
If you want to drop a background, you create a clipping path and save the file as an .eps.

For vector images:
All placed file should be .eps, not ai.

With the fluidity of CS products, Adobe allows for placement of many different types of file formats but I always felt that the statements above should be followed without exception.

Does anyone have any general comments on these statements?

thanks

[airyk]

As someone who deals with customer files, we find that many clients flatten photoshop files and then later need to send us an un-flattened file for us to fix something. If you are going to teach them to flatten all files, I would recommend teaching them to include the layered psd file, and then one saved flattened as a tif so the customer has both in the event they need to fix something.

[Mike F]

You also want to include a minimum resolution requirement, ESPECIALLY for .jpg files. We mostly do offset, here's the print specs we have if you wanna take a look.

PLATFORMS:
Mac or PC

PAGE MAKEUP & ILLUSTRATION PROGRAMS:
QuarkXpress 8
Indesign
Photoshop
Illustrator
Acrobat PDF (High resolution only)
MS Excel (1 color only)
MS Word
MS Publisher

ALL DOCUMENTS SHOULD INCLUDE A MINIMUM OF 1/8" BLEED
RULES (LINES) SHOULD BE NOT LESS THAN 0.3PT
PDFs:
Must be Press Ready (images 300 dpi & lineart 800 or higher)
All fonts should be embedded or converted to outline type

4 COLOR (ENRICHED) BLACKS:
Any black areas larger than .5" X .5" should be made 4 color (40% cyan, 30% magenta, 30% yellow, 100% black)
FONTS:
Please submit ALL fonts (both screen and printer fonts) used in the document
GRAPHICS/ARTWORK:
Any art placed on a document should be saved in a high resolution format
Please avoid JPEG, PICT, CT, etc.
When saving in EPS format please avoid saving with JPEG encoding
Black & White art should be saved as Grayscale and line art should be saved as BITMAPPED

ALL SUPPORTING ART SHOULD BE INCLUDED:
Even art placed inside another program such as Adobe Illustrator.
Photos should be 300 DPI (Please note: scaling up photos lowers resolution)
Line art/vector images should be at least 800 DPI

VARNISHES OR AQUEOUS COATING:
Please specify spot or overall

[dabob]

Since CS4 came out I have been using native .ai and .psd files almost without execption except when you want to color a grayscale image in InDesign then a .tiff is best or when using a bitmap file for line art . . that would be a tiff also but other than that when you flatten files using transparency in Photoshop the transparency becomes non transparent . .. haven't had any memorable problems with this approach . . .

The most important thing would be to work with the printer and get their input before you create the file since each shop has its own set of preferred styles. Its easier to do it considering who is going to be getting it in the end rather than go back and have to fix it after its all created.

[Colorblind]

I have to disagree with most of your statements. Sorry but all that sounds so 1990ish, when Quark was king of desktop publishing (with no alternative) and rips were somehow limited. There is nothing wrong with using layered or flattened tiff or PSD files in InDesign. It actually gives better portability and flexibility at layout stage. Clipping path eps? Well, maybe if you like hard edges old way looking close cuts... Anyway, if you know basics about image resolution and how to make a PDF that both you and your printer are comfortable working with, all these questions are irrelevant.

[hkellogg]

Thanks for your comments.

On a positive note, i do stress the importance using our own "file management" system.

Students package their files in InDesign, create a PDF via Adobe PDF Presets, then they take ALL intermediate files (which should included the .psd file with layers) and place them into a DoNotUse folder. Then, if the printer/client needs anything that relates to the job; they have it.

Last; I have them create a ReadMe file which helps me see if they can communicate what they have accomplished. My hope is that the job folder and its contents are intuitive to its recipient.

[buckeye]

I 100% agree with Colorblind. Applications and Rip's have caught up with the times and I'd much prefer getting a layered psd file over a flattened one. We seem to have to go back to the layered file more often than not to fix something. One thing I can't stress enough though is the use of "Collect For Output" and "Package" to name a few. It amazes me to this day that we still receive many jobs with missing fonts and images.

[Lukas Engqvist]

As some said in a CS suite workflow AI and PSD for most jobs. I'd even go so far as in saying RGB PSD if you will colour manage it. The cool thing about PSD is that you can control the layers in InDesign so you can have an extra (hidden) layer for increased contrast that you activate when your ad goes to newsprint. EPS can be problematic, you never know what they are, many clients take a JPG save it as an EPS and expect crisp vector

And on that note remember AI, PDF and EPS are not always scale independent since they may contain raster data. As for clipping paths, not the thing for soft edges.

[Joe]

As a faculty member at a university, we have students taking our graphic communications courses from all over campus, many with backgrounds in web. Since we stress the area of print, I have pushed the following philosophy on file formats.

For raster images:
.jpg is acceptable, .tiff is better
All flies should be flattened
You should never place a native format (.psd) into a layout program that is designed for print.
If you want to drop a background, you create a clipping path and save the file as an .eps.

For vector images:
All placed file should be .eps, not ai.

With the fluidity of CS products, Adobe allows for placement of many different types of file formats but I always felt that the statements above should be followed without exception.

Does anyone have any general comments on these statements?

thanks

GREAT advice...8 years ago or if you are using Quark. As others have said, times have changed. I would rather have nothing flattened. And jpegs, although widely used, are rarely used appropriately. They are really a pox on the print landscape.

Nothing wrong with .ai, .psd, or .pdf. EPS is a dying format though.

[kantblue]

Hi Joe,

Just curious - why do you say eps is a dying format, is it just about transparency?

kantblue