Output method for LARGE file

[Andy_warp]

I really have half a mind to report bannertime and shoresigns for bullying me on this website!

Psych!

I could give a rat’s *** what two people on a forum think I know! Hilarious!
Actually have seen both of you post intelligent solutions, but ok.

I’m told it “doesn’t matter, look at how we do billboards...”

That is not remotely the same as a showpiece fabric backlit print for a trade show! Is it?

I print stuff everyday where the file has been mishandled. Even product photography that is out of focus, or has quarter inch grain from when the photographer shot with iso too high. The reason most files from photographers are jpegs is because they don’t want to take the time to post process their raw files. They just want to set it and forget it, let Lightroom do half of my job.

Photos are really less of an issue, compression wise...it’s the software created graphic elements that go wacky with compression. Logos. Text. Gradients. But compression isn’t even the real problem in some cases. Designers want to copy and paste and swap elements from app to app, color space to color space, embedding and exporting. It’s a problem we all face. Every setting in the world isn’t going to give consistent results with any old pdf “ready to print” production file. We make our own from the native bits. We can control elements that should be the same, and ensure spot color continuity throughout a whole project. That way we can avoid the issues colorcrest and solventinkjet bring up about rendering intents at the rip. For most things you can print in a six foot printer compression can be moot. The OP is for larger images. Stuff I work with every day. Did I mention:
AVOID COMPRESSION??? F.F.S.

To AndyD, we come across stuff from time to time. We have a few tricks involving adding Gaussian noise layers subtly to add a little texture. Just have to watch out in the highlights so as to not add ink where there should be none. Be sure it’s monochromatic noise so color doesn’t mix in. It works pretty good to break up skies and gradient LG’s with very little contrast.

 

[Andy_warp]

Also, really important when adding a “schmutz” layer to break stuff up. Do it at a 200 or 300% upsample, then take it back down to your optimal output resolution.

 

[bannertime]

I’m told it “doesn’t matter, look at how we do billboards...” That is not remotely the same as a showpiece fabric backlit print for a trade show! Is it?

So, I think you're idea of compression is outdated. Lossless compression is reversible. I'd take a moment to read through this article about what LZW is actually doing. A RIP capable of reading TIFF LZW should produce the same results as an uncompressed file. Obviously, if you're in a situation where you need spot colors, then you're not using TIFF in the first place. Unless you really know what you're doing. If you've got all vector art, then TIFF isn't the answer either.

Every amount of data I've seen, read, and experienced in our own work has shown that modern compression is 100% acceptable when printing raster files. You've not provided a single shred of evidence that lossless compression produces subpar prints.

 

[Andy_warp]

Unless you really know what you're doing.

I assume you mean a spot color as an alpha channel. Have used it a couple times.

I don’t understand people’s reluctance to use .psd

Is the uncompressing at the rip really easier on it? Seems to me you’d be making it work harder.

I’ll see if I can find some examples today about my issues with LZW...you know a shred of evidence to appease and prove it to you, banner guy.

 

[Andy_warp]

So, I think you're idea of compression is outdated. Lossless compression is reversible. I'd take a moment to read through this article about what LZW is actually doing. A RIP capable of reading TIFF LZW should produce the same results as an uncompressed file. Obviously, if you're in a situation where you need spot colors, then you're not using TIFF in the first place. Unless you really know what you're doing. If you've got all vector art, then TIFF isn't the answer either.

Every amount of data I've seen, read, and experienced in our own work has shown that modern compression is 100% acceptable when printing raster files. You've not provided a single shred of evidence that lossless compression produces subpar prints.

Will check out this article, but I can tell you the main reason I don’t like to use the tif format.

If a tif file is truncated or damaged, it will still open. I had a project where this was the case, half of the image was black (the bottom half) I was provided no digital proof, just the production files. I had no idea the black at the bottom of the image was in error. A psd won’t do that to you. It simply won’t open.

 

[ColorCrest]

Will check out this article, but I can tell you the main reason I don’t like to use the tif format.

If a tif file is truncated or damaged, it will still open. I had a project where this was the case, half of the image was black (the bottom half) I was provided no digital proof, just the production files. I had no idea the black at the bottom of the image was in error. A psd won’t do that to you. It simply won’t open.

PSD can, and sometimes, will open damaged PSD files. See the attached images...

1) grabPSDerror1.jpg opened without error dialog and the entire image is faulty.

2) grabPSDerror2.jpg opened with error dialog (showing in example 1) and the bottom part of the image is faulty.

 

[bannertime]

you know a shred of evidence to appease and prove it to you, banner guy.

Appreciate it. And, not alpha channel, tiff supports transparency, talking about spot channel. It's odd, but you can actually setup spot colors inside Photoshop and it produces a Spot Color channel that does not transfer to tiff.

 

[ColorCrest]

It's odd, but you can actually setup spot colors inside Photoshop and it produces a Spot Color channel that does not transfer to tiff.

Are you saying Photoshop spot colors to TIFF is not working as you expect or those files are not working at your RIP?

Spot colors in Photoshop to TIFF do work.

 

[bannertime]

Are you saying Photoshop spot colors to TIFF is not working as you expect or those files are not working at your RIP?

Spot colors in Photoshop to TIFF do work.

Do they? I haven't tried it in quite awhile so I did a test and didn't find it to work. Will have to relearn how to do spot colors in Photoshop.

 

[shoresigns]

Andy_warp I'm really looking forward to your proof that lossless compression is lossy. Edge of my seat here.

 

[Andy_warp]

Andy_warp I'm really looking forward to your proof that lossless compression is lossy. Edge of my seat here.

Bless your heart.

 

[Andy_warp]

Do they? I haven't tried it in quite awhile so I did a test and didn't find it to work. Will have to relearn how to do spot colors in Photoshop.

I did a duo tone type image like this, and had full control of the spots at the rip. A little cumbersome to set up though.

 

[Andy_warp]

PSD can, and sometimes, will open damaged PSD files. See the attached images...

1) grabPSDerror1.jpg opened without error dialog and the entire image is faulty.

2) grabPSDerror2.jpg opened with error dialog (showing in example 1) and the bottom part of the image is faulty.

I see not only are these from creative suite 2, you get a warning dialog. Truncated tifs just open.

PSD is the best current pixel based file format.

 

[Andy_warp]

All right, all right. The tif compression is pretty dang good. My last issue with a tif MUST have been a re-save of something that already had jpeg compression. The zip compression option for layers within the lzw tif were really impressive. The lzw tif with rle compression for layers was 561 megs. Lzw tif with zip compression for layers was 229 megs. PSD was 884. I modeled my sample as 30 foot x 10 foot wall @ 72 ppi.

All I did was look for artifacts in the gradients and effects. It all looked the same. Didn’t print test it.

I even reopened the tif I saved and had access to the type layer with a drop shadow on it.

Please consider crow eaten.

Ultimately we output all of our print files as pdf. If it is, say a large image with a white knocked out logo...we save a native photoshop pdf. Anything as vector with branding has to go through Illustrator for spot color compatibility through the rip.

We do hit the pixel limitation fairly often associated with the pdf format, and have to down res in some cases.

I would argue that Illy functions better with psd than tif but I’ve had Adobe crap out many times with its own flavored files.

So to conclude. Tifs are good if they’ve never been j-pegged! Once that has been done, lzw doesn’t matter, the damage has been done.

This week has sucked, all year long...happy Friday print peeps!

 

[bannertime]

PSD is the best current pixel based file format.

So you're conclusion is that PSD is better because it shows you a warning when the image is corrupted?

Two things, we always get approval on artwork and never send anything to print unless explicitly confirmed in writing to print "as is." And, typically, we're exporting original art to be printed so we know exactly what the art should look like before printing.

 

[eahicks]

So you're conclusion is that PSD is better because it shows you a warning when the image is corrupted?

Two things, we always get approval on artwork and never send anything to print unless explicitly confirmed in writing to print "as is." And, typically, we're exporting original art to be printed so we know exactly what the art should look like before printing.

Sure PSD is the better file of all....but we're talking about COMPRESSION weren't we? PSD is the BIGGEST and has no compression options.

 

[Andy_warp]

So you're conclusion is that PSD is better because it shows you a warning when the image is corrupted?

Two things, we always get approval on artwork and never send anything to print unless explicitly confirmed in writing to print "as is." And, typically, we're exporting original art to be printed so we know exactly what the art should look like before printing.

Not ONLY because the warning.
I like all of the native non destructive adjustment tools psd has to offer. Haven’t tested if layered tifs will retain all of that type of stuff.

We get approval on art too, it just hurts to print crap when it doesn’t have to be that way. Compression is sometimes the culprit. Jpeg that is!

The other culprit is people just using images much larger than the image allows.

 

[bannertime]

Post keep coming in as I'm slowly getting around to writing this comment. lol, I shouldn't be here on a Friday afternoon!

So to conclude. Tifs are good if they’ve never been j-pegged! Once that has been done, lzw doesn’t matter, the damage has been done.

And that really goes for anything. We see it all the time when we do large sponsor banners.

As a banner guy, a majority of our work is done in Flexi and Illy. So I rarely deal with Photoshop as a main tool. I do use it for scaling and converting graphics to import into other programs as TIFFs. I'll tell you that Preserve Details 2.0 has been a life saver on so many fast turn around projects. So yeah, I don't deal with a lot of high-dpi high pass prints, but that has no bearing on knowledge of file types and such.

Sure PSD is the better file of all....but we're talking about COMPRESSION weren't we? PSD is the BIGGEST and has no compression options.

PSD is the absolute best for working in Photoshop. After all TIFF is a remnant of the old "TWAIN Acquire" days. But TIFF evolved and isn't proprietary so for every other program in the world, regarding raster art, it's going to be the best. I'd say official rankings would be #1 - A programs Native File Format and #2 TIFF.

TIFF doesn't even need compression, but when you can have a lossless format that produces the same results, why not? I will say that LZW isn't always the best, according to this article. Certain color depths actually make the file larger!

We get approval on art too, it just hurts to print crap when it doesn’t have to be that way.

Slightly off topic, but I got a file a few weeks ago that was created by a designer outside the US, a friend of the customer. The artwork was "good," but there were some awful transparency issues that cause a lens flare to be a sold black box. The customer literally told me to print it like that after I asked for it to be resent. I was able to fix it, but the point is, even customer approval isn't fool proof!

 

[ColorCrest]

I see not only are these from creative suite 2, you get a warning dialog. Truncated tifs just open.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, it was quite a while ago that issues such as this thread's tangent became widely known to service bureaus. TIFF was / is a known format, especially to print software & hdwr mfrs, and LZW was used for benefit of file xfer across WAN and LAN. The compressed file could go directly to print, including grand format shops. PSD files at the time, not so much.

A very real concern is the proprietary PSD format itself as far as access in the long term. Some shops have always used TIFF as the base. They're lucky that way.

Yes, you can save TIFF files with adjustment layers.

 

[Boudica]

I'm not sure I know what you mean, but if you break up a 900mb file into 10 panels with a 1/2" overlap, you will have roughly (10) 92mb files, and the advantage
is if you have to go back and reprint one panel a month later, you will have it ready to print (assuming you didn't delete the panels of coarse)
OP, you probably already know this, but make sure you flip every other panel.

I've been making tiffs for years, and just recently I was turned on to using the LZW compression. It's exactly for what we are doing, and it makes a MUCH smaller file. Worlds smaller. I highly reccomend using that setting. Making the tiffs used to be a little painful because they took so long to save, and a long time to rip. Selecting the LZW compression is a wiz - saves faster and RIPs faster!