Hey Sup Forums help?

hey Sup Forums help?
i'm making a magazine with Indesign and i'm having some problems with the printing process.
1. when i work on indesign everything looks fine and smooth but on the printed material the text looks very fuzzy and not clear, as if there are square pixels on each corner. and the lines on the texts are not even, for example, the letter 'l' is thinner here and thicker there. the readibility is really damaged and i just want it to look as smooth as it did on my computer screen.
2. all the images look super darker than they did on screen. this is really the major problem since my magazine is full of images and yet most of the details can't even be seen because of how dark they are.

can anyone help?

anyone?

>printed material the text looks very fuzzy and not clear
Several potential causes:
-final layout exported to lossy bitmap image format
-Dots Per Inch setting too low
-final layout exported at smaller size than paper size and stretched to fit

>all the images look super darker than they did on screen
Your computer screen is not paper and ink and your printer has no way of knowing what your screen looks like, you need to calibrate your shit so everything matches

This is all basic shit dude

InDesign Secrets dot com

check your export settings for your pdf-y

same as this guy, probably a DPI issue

also use preflight to make sure your fonts are being included properly

you should get an onahole

also the images being dark sounds like a colorspace conversion issue

i hope you're exporting to pdf and printing from there

>final layout exported to lossy bitmap image format
what do you mean by this..? i exported using pdf/x-1 2001 preset, does that have to do with any of this?
>Dots Per Inch setting too low
is that something to do with the printer? how do i check if it's sufficient?
>final layout exported at smaller size than paper size and stretched to fit
i don't think it's this i worked on B5 and i printed on B5

i don't need the printed image to look exactly like the one on screen; i just need it to look normal and not so super dark. how can i do that?

it probably is basic shit but i'm just very new to printing and editing on a computer

i'm using pdf/x-1 2001. isn't that supposed to convert rgb to cmyk? am i supposed to do something else?

>is that something to do with the printer?
Yes, duh. It tells the printer how densely to space the dots of ink.
Set it too low and your prints will come out muddy and unfocused.

okay so if it's a dpi issue it's got nothing to do with what i do on my computer? if it's a printer issue, do i have to tell the printing service people to set the dpi higher?

time to bail on thread

>using indesign
>not understanding dpi

i'm familiar with the term but i'm new to this and i've just started learning. i know that dpi is a printing term and ppi is similar but has to do with what shows on screen. the reason i'm double checking is last time i called to ask what i should do with the cracked font and dark images they just said that it's got nothing to do with them. so i'm asking if there's anything i should have done on my side before turning the pdf over

>if it's a dpi issue it's got nothing to do with what i do on my computer?
What the fuck? No, you the computer user are wholly responsible for the DPI setting, it's right there in front of you whenever you go to make a new project or to print.

>do i have to tell the printing service people to set the dpi higher?
Jesus Christ, dude.
I'm not solving any more captchas for this.

i'll be nice
ask your printing company, they'll probably help you more than Sup Forums will

are you talking about ppi?

right or maybe i should just go and study a bit more thanks anyways

sigh

dots per inch stands for the number of dots printed per inch, so if it's too low, it's going to mess up the visual quality of whatever's printed

typically you want to stick to 300+

There is a surprisingly good amount of usefule information in parts of this thread.

In addition, I have had part of this problem using a networked printer. Problems went away when i plugged directly to the printer.

again if you're talking about ppi the pdf preset already sets the image and text resolution to 300+

A pixel is not a dot.
A pixel is for computer screens, dots are for printing.

Use PDF x3 or x4.

Convert your images manually from rgb to cmyk to ensure that the outcome is as you wish.

Don’t ever scale a picture bigger as it is, in some circumstances 120% is ok though. Use photoshop to scale your pictures.

But if you insert a shitty 100dpi picture into an indesign document, it doesn’t matter if the pdf has 3000000dpi afterwards, the picture is still shitty

k i'll try that thanks

you're not understanding my problem. the resolution of the images are all good. it's not the image that looks cracked on print; it's the text. the images just look very dark, and i don't think that's got anything to do with ppi or dpi

what's a computer?

In some PDF versions it’s not ensured that the fonts get embedded. PDF x3 normally does that.

Another question: how is the printing done? Depending on the printing method the pictures need different color-correction curves, as, due to physical reasons, the color gets darker more or less.

Check this

Further explanation: if the font is not fully embedded in the pdf file, the computer of the print service MUST have the exact font installed, or the computer does not know how to display it correctly and displays something wrong or uses another font.

in that case do i need the printing company to specify color correction curves?

And check your display settings, maybe it’s to bright

thanks for the elaboration but i dont think its the embed problem since im using a fairly common font; no computer should have a problem displaying my font