Detecting areas of fine detail

[magicray]

I'm looking to preflight effect files (emboss, spot UV, etc) and was wondering if there was a way to detect areas that would present a printing risk? Sometimes designers will try to include areas with extremely fine lines/details and I'm looking for a method to flag these so the files can be corrected.

I found "Detect Small Objects" in the actions list, but that doesn't seem to work the way I need it to. I think this is more for stroke detection? I'm dealing with files that can contain a mix of raster/vector, so just detecting line width won't cut it.

 

[prepressdork]

Try the "Check for Complex Pages" action list. This...might...be what you're looking for? It doubt it will help with images but for vector content, it might.

Best regards,
pd

 

[chriscozi]

I'm looking to preflight effect files (emboss, spot UV, etc) and was wondering if there was a way to detect areas that would present a printing risk? Sometimes designers will try to include areas with extremely fine lines/details and I'm looking for a method to flag these so the files can be corrected.

I found "Detect Small Objects" in the actions list, but that doesn't seem to work the way I need it to. I think this is more for stroke detection? I'm dealing with files that can contain a mix of raster/vector, so just detecting line width won't cut it.

Mark1 Eyeball.

 

[magicray]

Mark1 Eyeball.

That's the current 'method.' Was hoping there was something a bit more standardized. I've got a handful of people reviewing files, and each one judges them differently and I've had to step in at the last minute because someone decided something was 'passable' when it clearly wasn't.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If you were OK with rasterizing the file in Photoshop for preview purposes, then it's easy to create an action to visually show detail at a given pixel size that is considered too small.

Here is a simplified animated example, however, with other content it might prove to be more challenging:

 

[chriscozi]

That's the current 'method.' Was hoping there was something a bit more standardized. I've got a handful of people reviewing files, and each one judges them differently and I've had to step in at the last minute because someone decided something was 'passable' when it clearly wasn't.

This might actually be a use case for an 'Expert System', what people often mistakenly call AI.
Visual analysis systems are being utilized in many industries.

Assuming:
You would use your current system and people to analyze images past and present.
Then 'train' the new system on those decisions.
Then use the system to begin analysis on new images and backstop the system with Mark1 Eyeball.
You then have an analysis system which might do what you want.

I'm sure someone who has a passing understanding of them might be able to point you in the right direction.
And then you could see how much that system might cost to institute and maintain versus continuing to use a human staff.
YMMV.