Adobe Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud

[David Milisock]

Now here you go getting upset over nothing. I use them all even MS Publisher and they all need patches. Hpwever some provide a better bang for you buck then others.

>I wonder why no prepress software providers (Esko, Kodak) offer plugins or tools for CorelDraw? They must have their heads in the sand like everyone else but you.
Because it's a specialized sign software that happens to be usefull elseware. That's why vector Capital bought it and Gerber. I don't expect most people to get it. All you need to do is look at the performace on the print industry as a whole over that last 25 years and ask yourself if this is how you want to continue? After come consideration maybe we'll get our head out of the Cloud? BTW Kodack provided Corel with their color engine for years and considering the Nextpress, Well enough said.

 

[David Milisock]

>Use the tools that work best for you and your customers.

Good coment but are we as useres smart enough to know what works most cost effectively? I'm betting like Adobe has with Cloud that the answer is no.

>Score one for competition incentive (albeit minor) for Adobe to improve Illustrator.

Maybe you haven't seen a CorelDRAW file because any smart Corel user is sending a press ready Distiller published PDF file. I've been sending them out that way world wide since Acrobat 4, as do most CorelDRAW users I know.

The concept that Adobe could ever improve Illustrator to compete with the functions of CorelDRAW is naive at best. There are so many industry specific features in CorelDRAW that it would mean that Adobe would have to combine many features of Photoshop and InDesign into Illustrator itself. That would cut into their profits!

CorelDRAW owns the engraving business, is a dominate player in the sign industry, is dominate in the embroidery business and due to the fact that people who do these things are used to using the application it gets used for print too. Why not, it's ICC and postscript compliant?

Try and make up a full scale multi-page mockup of a project that's 25' high x 12' wide in Illustrator. Not going to happen, so I need the entire CS to do that at $800? So if I can do the aformentioned in CorelDRAW and still design and get output 50,000 3 panel 5/5 brochures too why not? It's not like it costs me an arm and a leg for the software.

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Maybe you haven't seen a CorelDRAW file because any smart Corel user is sending a press ready Distiller published PDF file. I've been sending them out that way world wide since Acrobat 4, as do most CorelDRAW users I know.

Hi Dave,

Corel has built in capabilities to save files as PDF. Why would CorelDraw users output a PS file and feed it to Acrobat Distiller when they could generate the PDF directly in Corel? Doesn't make sense to me. It's an extra step in the workflow and requires purchasing additional software.

Greg

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Meaningly? Don't ya love my spelling?! LOL, I meant meaningless ;-)

I never said we were in a different industry. I said we are two different areas of the industry...meaning the same industry ;-) And it is meaningless. For commercial print, Adobe software is the dominant software and because that's what our customers use, we must also use it. For wide-format, CorelDraw may very well be better suited than something like InDesign or Illustrator (and probably less expensive too). My original closing statement still stands though. You use what is most applicable to your work, and likewise for me.

It's funny you mentioned VersaWorks because that is the rip that came with our wide-format machine. It uses the Adobe CPSI rip. Roland (or whoever makes VersaWorks) is replacing it with the native Adobe PDF Print Engine in about 6 months. Although the current CPSI rip is ready to go out of the box, we just have to flatten transparency before we send the job to VersaWorks (this is a step backwards in my opinion). Although Postscript is still a viable (albeit older) technology, a rip that supports native transparency is the only way to go IMHO.

 

[chevalier]

Although the current CPSI rip is ready to go out of the box, we just have to flatten transparency before we send the job to VersaWorks (this is a step backwards in my opinion). Although Postscript is still a viable (albeit older) technology, a rip that supports native transparency is the only way to go IMHO.

This might be sound harsh... It's not pointed at any individual or entity - just a comment

When I hear about a vendor who can only accept flattened or PS files I'm tempted to ask if I can just send them film for their frame, stripping and camera workflow instead. Asking for Postscript or flattened files from me sounds just as insane as asking for film. Postscript 3 came out in 1997! Gas was ~$1.25, a share of Apple was ~$8 and this is what the internet looked like. If you are still having trouble with the internets perhaps this guy from 1997 can help. Here's another gem from the mid 90's about how to surf the world wide web. Hopefully you have the minimum 4mb of RAM.

 

[David Milisock]

>Corel has built in capabilities to save files as PDF.
Greg you're absolutely correct, the transparency is live and many and I mean many pre-press technicians will see that it's not a Distiller published PDF and they reject it. Some see it's a Corel published PDF and reject it on that basis. In my opinion this is not very intelliget thing but I've seen this happen quite a bit. I tend to use the Corel published PDF's as proofs and on work flows where I have tested Corel PDF files and send Distiller published PDF files when sending a file to international or other unknown work flows. With X5 Some N-color space objects will output properly but preview in the RIP with a holding placard, X6 has not had a service pack yet so I'm holding an opinion.

Regardless of the creation application Adobe or Corel overlapping transparency can be the issue and for some RIPs regardless of cost sometimes the file previews properly in the RIP but outputs with a bounding frame around some of the transparency.

 

[David Milisock]

>Adobe software is the dominant software and because that's what our customers use, we must also use it.
We took the other approach, send me a press ready PDF or send me nothing and it has worked very well. We dumped the problem clients and kept the decent ones, we also reduced our hardware support to one platform.

>a rip that supports native transparency is the only way to go IMHO.
Agreed if they can make sure the preview match the output 100%. I'm wondering if the industry can support the costs of these RIPs? Regardless of the application the preview not matching the output is the real issue and it happens too often.

 

[David Milisock]

>When I hear about a vendor who can only accept flattened or PS files I'm tempted to ask if I can just send them film for their frame, stripping and camera workflow instead.
I don't disagree but maybe I get into a few more print shops then you do. A flattened PDF unfortunately may be your best bet.

 

[iamgemini]

I think CS6 does have its pros and cons and the cons listed above are pretty big ones for the print industry. I guess the only thing I can think of is that the subscription style of purchase will ensure consistent updates, support, etc.

As printers we like to pretend to be on the cutting edge of technology and when customers ask what programs I use I am always happy to claim the latest version of CS.

Unfortunately I think that CS will eventually be switched to subscription only for the upcoming versions, so it might be better to get used to it now. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

[David Milisock]

>Unfortunately I think that CS will eventually be switched to subscription only
I hope not but the current trend in software profitability surely points to you being correct.

 

[leonardr]

Postscript level 3 by definition supports ICC color management.

That is incorrect. Postscript Level 3 supports device independent colors, but using a different model from ICC. ICC profile support exists only in Postscript via (semi-private) extensions to the language. You will not find the term ICC in the PS Level 3 book.

The GDI is sRGB but modern drivers allow interface in the print stream for the use of media profiles.

But why would you be printing through GDI any longer? Modern applications on Vista & Win7 no longer use GDI for their printing system - and when producing PDF files, you wouldn't go through print either, you'd go "direct to PDF".

PDF is a subset of postscript

That has NEVER been a true statement and is most certainly not the case today, when PDF has been advancing for over a decade while Postscript has been unchanged.

I recommend that you pick up a copy of ISO 32000-1:2008, the PDF standard, and refresh your understanding of the format.

First the Adobe default of relative colorimetric rendering with black point compensation (last time I checked) is not ICC compliant.

That is also incorrect. Black Point Compensation is publicly documented by the ICC and thus fully supported.

Illustrator does not convert properly when convertiong to raster, when converting to raster AI converts R0 G0 B0 to C0 M0 Y0 K100.

You state that as if such values are implicit, but since we both agree that ICC-based conversion are the correct ones - any such values would be STRICTLY determined by the selected source & destination profiles, combined with any additional options applied to the CMM (such as BPC). So without knowing which profiles you have chosen and what your CM settings are, your statement has no weight.

For one, InDesign does not display spot color using the current Pantone specification of LAB.

If you mean when applying a Pantone color to a newly created object, that would be FALSE. InDesign CS4 and later, include the LAB-based Pantone books. So when you apply a new color from that book, the alternate color that we get from the Pantone book will be LAB.

HOWEVER, when you place an existing piece of art (PDF, EPS, etc.), we use whatever alternate color is specified in that piece of art. We do NOT recolor placed objects. So if you place a piece which uses a CMYK-based alternate for your Pantone swatch, that is what will be used.

InDesign lacks a high resolution color managed RGB display for linked images, if you check it's sRGB.

That is also incorrect.

When displaying an image (any image) in InDesign, or any Adobe application, for that matter, we first look for embedded ICC profiles. If present, the embedded profile is used as the source profile for the image. If we can not find one, we then use your provided "working space profile" for that colorspace (eg. RGB) and use that. So if you are getting sRGB, then you either have all your images tagged that way OR that's your selected working space.


Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Architect
Adobe Systems

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

HOWEVER, when you place an existing piece of art (PDF, EPS, etc.), we use whatever alternate color is specified in that piece of art. We do NOT recolor placed objects. So if you place a piece which uses a CMYK-based alternate for your Pantone swatch, that is what will be used.

Almost true. It is the first art that is placed with a named colour that defines that colour (which is only apparent when you view with overprint preview). If you add the named colour before any artwork with that colour exists, you can define it any way you want (though Lab would be a good alternative). Any art with that colour will honour this definition (when printed with overprint or colour management… some desktop printing devices do not do this which can give different results on different devices). The reason for this is that Names need to be unique and it is the first definition of the Named colour that trumphs.

 

[leonardr]

Almost true. It is the first art that is placed with a named colour that defines that colour (which is only apparent when you view with overprint preview).

Also "almost true" .

In terms of what InDesign stores in the file, it will actually store the information from the original placed artwork - we do NOT modify that as part of the authoring process. So if you have two pieces of art that each use the same Named color but with different alternates, each one is maintained as such.

However, you are correct that when RENDERING, the "first one in" (with the same name) will take precedence and that is that alternate that we will use for on-screen display.

When creating a PDF, what happens depends on what your output settings are. If you produce a "generic" PDF, then we will also leave the original art alone and produce a PDF with differing alternates. However, should you produce a PDF/X compliant PDF (always a good thing!), then we will consolidate the same-named colors into a single instance with a single alternate.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

This is why I love this forum sharpening my skills.

Also worth to note that this means that one image may be rendered correctly when placed in one image and incorrectly in another… and it is very hard to trouble shoot.

 

[David Milisock]

>That is incorrect. Postscript Level 3 supports device independent colors, but using a different model from ICC. ICC profile support exists only in Postscript via (semi-private) extensions to the language. You will not find the term ICC in the PS Level 3 book.
So you're saying the PS level 3 does not support ICC color management?

>But why would you be printing through GDI any longer?
I agree but clearly you don't get out much, it's done everywhere, you see it on Adobe forums especially the one complaining that Adobe hasn't updated Adobe ICM to 64 bit.

>and when producing PDF files, you wouldn't go through print either, you'd go "direct to PDF".

Because may RIPS and therefore print companies do not accept PDF files that are not Distiller published, if the file is wrong you pay, so you play by their rules to avoid the costs. Many people do not use Adobe applications, so they print to the PDF printer and Distill. I can understand that you may not buy much printing?


>That has NEVER been a true statement and is most certainly not the case today, when PDF has been advancing for over a decade while Postscript has been unchanged.

Ok sure PS level 3 has remained stagnent and PDF has since evolved. So I'll give you a choice, when I was writing pre-press articles for Cygnus years ago and PDF was new, Adobe said it was a subset of PS. Which one of you was telling the truth? You or the guy way back then?

>That is also incorrect. Black Point Compensation is publicly documented by the ICC and thus fully supported.

Publically supported is NOT ICC compliant, IMO this is Adobe making it's own rules. I just did a search of the ICC site for black point compensation in 4 areas and found nothing. Post the document here and I'll give it a read if it's ICC compliant I'll promote other apps to bring it on board.

>You state that as if such values are implicit, but since we both agree that ICC-based conversion are the correct ones - any such values would be STRICTLY determined by the selected source & destination profiles, combined with any additional options applied to the CMM (such as BPC). So without knowing which profiles you have chosen and what your CM settings are, your statement has no weight.

You do use Illustrator correct? Check the forums here and I believe you'll find your default color setting a bit lacking.

>If you mean when applying a Pantone color to a newly created object, that would be FALSE. InDesign CS4 and later, include the LAB-based Pantone books. So when you apply a new color from that book, the alternate color that we get from the Pantone book will be LAB.

No what I mean is that a spot color in Indesign will convert to a different CMYK value then it's suppossed to. Other applications that use LAB for such conversions convert to differnt CMYK values even when the rendering intents, color engines and profiles are the same, I never assume Adobe does it correctly.

>we first look for embedded ICC profiles. If present, the embedded profile is used as the source profile for the image.

Ok try this take a control RGB image, convert it to 2 different CMYK color spaces, one that matches the cmyk setting in InDesign and one that does not, make sure to embedd the profiles in the tiffs and have the apps color setting set to honor profiles. Now I'm on vacation working with CS5 so this is not CS6, the one that matches the apps space displays fine the other shifts and there's nothing you can do about it. Same thing happens for all color spaces.

 

[leonardr]

So you're saying the PS level 3 does not support ICC color management?

As defined by the PS Level 3 standard, there is no such thing as ICC color management.

Are there RIPs (and other tools) that EXTEND the standard to do so - of course. It's been part of Adobe CPSI for years. But supporting something and having it be part of the standard are two different things.

I agree but clearly you don't get out much, it's done everywhere,

People do lots of things that aren't good for themselves - smoking, not wearing seat belts, jumping of bridges, etc.

Doesn't make it right and it CERTAINLY isn't something that I would promote, especially in a public forum.

Because may RIPS and therefore print companies do not accept PDF files that are not Distiller published,

I've NEVER seen a RIP that has any such restriction - since the RIP doesn't bother looking at that. I have, however, heard of some antiquated print vendors with such restrictions but I was pretty sure most of them had died out. These days, everyone seems to be (as they should) requesting PDF/X (usually -1a) files - in which case the producer doesn't matter.

Distiller is a product whose time has come and gone. Move on...

Many people do not use Adobe applications, so they print to the PDF printer and Distill.

True, though many other applications have native PDF support these days as well. MSOffice, OpenOffice, Corel, iWork, etc. So even there it isn't necessary.

And those that have to print to the PDF printer - sure. How that particular printer driver happens to work shouldn't matter. Today, on Windows, it happens to use Postscript and Distiller, but there may come a day that such things change - just as we had to on Mac OS X.

I can understand that you may not buy much printing?

I don't, but my wife does. She sends either PDF/X-4 or PDF/X-1a to her printers and has never had a problem.

Ok sure PS level 3 has remained stagnent and PDF has since evolved. So I'll give you a choice, when I was writing pre-press articles for Cygnus years ago and PDF was new, Adobe said it was a subset of PS. Which one of you was telling the truth? You or the guy way back then?

Depends .

Postscript is a full fledged programming language, offering loops, variables, conditionals, etc that also happens to support a Page Description Language (PDL). PDF is a structured binary file format for containing a PDL. So if you look at it that way, since PDF only does the PDL bits of Postscript, you could argue that it's a subset.

BUT the imaging model itself has always been equal or greater than Postscript. (the only exception being the very short time between the release of PS Level 2 and PDF 1.2 and then PS Level 3 and PDF 1.3).

Publically supported is NOT ICC compliant, IMO this is Adobe making it's own rules.

ICC compliant means that it follows the rules defined by the ICC. So if the ICC is defining BlackPoint Compensation and it's use, therefore such use is compliant. I agree, however, that the current ICC Profile specification says nothing about BPC, and the ICC is working on an update that will correct that.

No what I mean is that a spot color in Indesign will convert to a different CMYK value then it's suppossed to.

A spot color added natively in InDesign or imported with artwork? Converted WHEN?

As I mentioned in an earlier message, there are a number of possible options here, depending on the conditions. I need to know your EXACT workflow to be able to comment...

Ok try this take a control RGB image, convert it to 2 different CMYK color spaces, one that matches the cmyk setting in InDesign and one that does not, make sure to embedd the profiles in the tiffs and have the apps color setting set to honor profiles. Now I'm on vacation working with CS5 so this is not CS6, the one that matches the apps space displays fine the other shifts and there's nothing you can do about it. Same thing happens for all color spaces.

I would never pre-convert RGB to CMYK. Throwing away useful information (eg. color gamut in this case) makes no sense. But for this example, I'll play along.

I don't see the problem with this workflow - that is EXACTLY what I would expect.

I have an image with embedded profile (let's say SWOP) and I place it into a document whose working colorspace is a different profile (eg. ISO Coated). In order to render the image in the document's working space, it has to convert from the one profile into the other profile. It does so using standard ICC color management, which in this case would be a 4->3->4 conversion from SWOP->PCS->ISO Coated. Which will almost always result in a color shift and why most creatives would tell you NEVER to do that.

The recommend method is, as I mentioned earlier, keep the images in some RGB (with embedded profile) and place them as is into InDesign, regardless of working space. They will happily convert for rendering without the color shifts (since you have the wider gamut to work with) and when you export to PDF at the end, you can then control the final Output Profile (hopefully as part of a PDF/X conversion).

 

[Craig]

David - I think you are beating a dead horse. Some people just don't want to admit that there are other programs just a effective (I argue more effective) than Adobe CS. As a CorelDraw user since version 5, and an Adobe user since they bought PageMaker, I can tell you CorelDraw is used more here than anything else. If you are open and objective and actually use the program, you will find it much easier and faster than the CS suite. The problem with Corel is their marketing, they need to get it in the trade schools and universities where nonobjective users can see which one they prefer. Unfortunately Adobe was smarter earlier and did just that.

 

[iamgemini]

David - I think you are beating a dead horse. Some people just don't want to admit that there are other programs just a effective (I argue more effective) than Adobe CS. As a CorelDraw user since version 5, and an Adobe user since they bought PageMaker, I can tell you CorelDraw is used more here than anything else. If you are open and objective and actually use the program, you will find it much easier and faster than the CS suite. The problem with Corel is their marketing, they need to get it in the trade schools and universities where nonobjective users can see which one they prefer. Unfortunately Adobe was smarter earlier and did just that.

I can't help but agree with this. Not only when it comes to CS, but also virtually any other software. I myself use CS, but I have experimented with Corel and Gimp, both which work pretty well. The best part about CS is the fact that they are the frontrunner and have financial backing to improve their product.

That said, there are still plenty of alternatives able to meet and exceed expectations for design requirements.

It may be difficult for some of these companies to catch up with CS, but that doesn't mean that they are pursuing an inferior product. Some prefer the price and even the performance of smaller programs, so stating that a single program is empirically superior limits exploration to a certain extent.

 

[David Milisock]

>David - I think you are beating a dead horse
Agreed, but unfortunately the dead horse, judging from the last 25 years of performance is the graphics industry. Thinking is not popular but it is profitable.

 

[David Milisock]

>It may be difficult for some of these companies to catch up with CS, but that doesn't mean that they are pursuing an inferior product.
Agreed, many products produce the abilities required for many industries without the gouge the user for more bucks than they can afford attitude. I guess I just don't have my head in the cloud!