Stephan Jaeggi, PrePress-Consulting Acrobat 4.0 for Prepress Distiller 4.0 PostScript LanguageLevel 3 PDF 1.3 Acrobat 4.0 (FKA Exchange) What's still missing Third party tools Conclusions Updated Version View this presentation at http://www.prepress.ch
Distiller 4.0 Save/distribute/load settings
Distiller 4.0 for Prepress Compression Bicubic Downsampling Treshold: 2.0 > 1.5
Distiller 4.0 for Prepress Font Embedding Embedding ALL Fonts means now ALL Fonts Cancel when embedding fails
Distiller 4.0 for Prepress Color Tagging with ICC profiles No color conversion
Distiller 4.0 for Prepress Advanced Document Structuring Conventions Portable Job Ticket
Distiller 4.0 Distiller is much easier for average user A lot of the issues solved Some features are not yet supported by applications Bleed/trim box Some of the new features are currently not accessible for the user Portable Job Tickets Good foundation for the future Because you must begin at the beginning No good output without a good input!
PostScript LanguageLevel 3 DeviceN Multitones from PhotoShop 5.0.2 Spot color gradients from next update of Illustrator 8.0 Colorized TIFFs from??? HiFi Color (Hexachrome) Smooth shading Idiom recognition Masked images
Composite Preseparated Feature Composite Preseparated QXP traps lost maintained Multitones only APS 5.02 PSL1, PSL2 Spot color blends next upgrade of AI 8 possible Colorized TIFFs not possible (yet) possible DCS impossible possible Viewing color each sep. in B&W Color proof possible needs add. SW Color transformation possible impossible Device indep. color possible impossible Editing possible reduced InRIP-Trapping possible impossible PDF-Trapping possible impossible Size small big(ger) We need better support for composite workflow!
PDF 1.3 Separation info => preseparated workflow incl. imposition OPI 2.0 ICCBased color Trapping info ( > PJTF) Bleed/trim box Embedded files Alternate images (e.g. lowres/highres, RGB/CMYK) Structured content PostScript LanguageLevel 3 compatible
Acrobat 4.0 (FKA Exchange) Annotations, digital signatures*, versions*, compare* Better editing features (TouchUp, Illustrator, PhotoShop) Prepress Plug-In (* = initially only for Windows)
What's still missing Control Preflight Access to bleed/trim box Color transformation Spot color conversion and mapping Imaging Separation ICC output profiles Printer marks "Proof of concept" demonstrated by Adobe, Wednesday, March 3rd 1999 at Seybold Boston
Bottom line Acrobat 4.0 for Prepress? Acrobat 4.0 is mainly an update for corporate office users on Windows. Many interesting new features are initially missing in the Mac version. Valuable extensions to the PDF specification. Distiller 4.0 does a good job of addressing the prepress requirements. But Acrobat 4.0 (Exchange) does not (yet)! Watch out for prepress plug-ins from third parties (and Adobe)
Third party tools / 1 Color separation InRIP separation Crackerjack (Lantana) pdfoutput Pro (Callas) PDF Handshake (Helios) PDF-Separator (Prepress-Consulting) Imposition software (Scenicsoft, Imation, Farruk, ) Import in Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, InDesign Color Management (ICC) PDF Handshake (Helios) PDF Flyer (Color Partnership) Quite a Box of Tricks (Quite) This list is certainly not complete!
Third party tools / 2 Printer Marks PS RIP Crackerjack (Lantana) pdfcropmarks (callas pdftoolbox) EPS-Import in layout application Imposition application Defined in original application (already in PDF doc.) Preflight CheckUp / DoubleCheck / PitStop 4.0 (EnFocus) pdfinspektor (callas) FlightCheck (Markzware) Preflight Pro (Extensis) Solvero / Asura (OneVision) DistillerTools (PrePress-Consulting & Lupin)
Third party tools / 3 Imposition Imposing Plus (Quite) ImpozeIt (IPTech) PDF Imposer (Computer Stream) PDF Organizer (AC&C) SignaStation (Heidelberg) Imposition (OneVision) Preps (Scenicsoft) PressWise (Luminous) Imposition Publisher (Farruk) Impostrip / IMPress (Ultimate) Inposition (DK&A) Not all of these tools are working really with PDF...
Third party tools / 4 OPI PDF Handshake (Helios) PDF Doctor (Lantana) Merge-It (AC&C) Trapping Trapeze (Ultimate) InRIP-Trapping (Adobe-OEMs) Trapping after RIPing (Scitex, HDPP)
Conclusions Acrobat 4.0 is a good update Some prepress features are missing But it's not only Acrobat which needs to be adapted Composite workflow needs to be better supported by layout applications View this presentation at http://www.prepress.ch
PrePress-Consulting and Lupin Software Annoncement: DistillerTools 4.0 FontNotes 4.0 Note on first page with information on missing, substituted and available fonts DistillerNotes 4.0 Note on first page with information on Distiller settings used for this document Expert Options for Distiller 4.0 Access to hidden settings of Distiller like Downsample treshold value Image depth and antialiasing Page Range Definition of bleed/trim/art box Trapping switch
PrePress-Consulting Annoncement: PDF-Separator 1.0 Automatisation of EPSF export (PSL1) of all or a range of pages out of Acrobat Generation of a new XPress document with a corresponding page size Import of the ESPF files into the Quark layout Single pages Reader spread Printer spread Separation and imaging (including printer marks) using the well known XPress features