Washed out Greyscale Images in PDF

[Anthony_Luceno@adobeforums.com]

Hello all...

Can you guys suggest some tips to improve the look of greyscale images in my PDF's? At the moment I'm producing ads (in InDesign CS) that are greyscale. All of the solid black items come out dark... but the greyscale photographs appear washed out. They don't appear this way in InDesign or Photoshop... just after the PDF is created. I've creating them press ready, with plenty of resolution and I've tried the "Print to PS to distiller to pdf" route as well as the "PDF Export Presets" route - all with the same results. Any ideas?

Oh yah... colour profiles in InDesign and Photoshop are US PrePress settings

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

[Anthony_Luceno@adobeforums.com]

Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller?

[MikeKazlow@adobeforums.com]

What settings are you using to create the pdfs.

Mike

[Anthony_Luceno@adobeforums.com]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for responding. I generally Print the file as an ADOBE PDF - on occassion I'll use the PDF Export option in InDesign CS. Here are the settings that I use:

Print Preset: Ads as PDFs
Printer: Adobe PDF
PPD: Adobe PDF
PPD File: Macintosh HD:private:var:tmp:42ea2a9276015

General
Copies: 1
Collate: N/A
Reverse Order: Off
Pages: All
Sequence: All Pages
Spreads: Off
Print Master Pages: Off
Print Non-printing Objects: Off
Print Blank Pages: Off
Print Visible Guides and Baseline Grids: Off

Setup
Paper Size: Custom
Paper Width: Auto
Paper Height: Auto
Page Orientation: Portrait
Paper Offset: 0 in
Paper Gap: 0 in
Transverse: Off
Scaling: 100%
Constrain Proportions: On
Page Position: Centered
Thumbnails: Off
Tiling: Off

Marks and Bleed
Crop Marks: Off
Bleed Marks: Off
Registration Marks: Off
Color Bars: Off
Page Information: Off
Printer Mark Type: Default
Crop Mark Weight: 0.25 pt
Mark Offset from Page: 0.0833 in
Use Document Bleed Settings: On
Bleed Top: 0 in
Bleed Bottom: 0 in
Bleed Inside: 0 in
Bleed Outside: 0 in
Include Slug Area: Off

Output
Color: Composite CMYK
Text As Black: Off
Trapping: N/A
Flip: None
Negative: N/A
Screening: Default
Simulate Overprint: Off

Graphics
Send Data: All
Download: Complete
Download PPD Fonts: On
PostScript¨: Level 3
Data Format: ASCII

Color Management
Source Space: Document
Profile: Document CMYK - U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
CRD: N/A
Intent: N/A

Advanced
OPI Image Replacement: Off
EPS: Off
PDF: Off
Bitmap Images: Off
Transparency Flattener Preset: [High Resolution]
Ignore Spread Overrides: Off

I'm using images that are 300dpi greyscale TIFF's. They're generally 3" x 4" (actual image size) and I rescale them to about 1/3rd of that in my layout (so I should have more resolution than I need?). The images look good in Photoshop and InDesign but when I create the PDF they look washed out and often the final print looks slightly blurry.

If I use the Export to PDF menu in InDesign I have the option of turning off any compression (downsampling). Should I be doing this (and taking the Export to PDF route)?

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

[MikeKazlow@adobeforums.com]

Anthony,

InDesign is designed to create pdfs via export. There are special
settings to get the best output from your file. This is similar to the
Adobe PDF settings files in Distiller.


If you are going to print to file, then you are going to need set the
pdf printer driver to print to the proper distiller Adobe Pdf settings.
Otherwise, you are the mercy of a settings file that can do terrible (or
at least unintended) things to your pdf file.

Mike

[Anthony_Luceno@adobeforums.com]

So... you're saying that I should take the InDesign export to PDF route when creating PDF's? That's good to know. Is there anything else I'm missing?

Anthony

[Jon_Bessant@adobeforums.com]

Anthony,

Pre-flight the ID document before making a PDF - you might be forcing ID
to perform colour conversions ....

Jon

[Ericka_Robbins@adobeforums.com]

Anthony,

Printing to Adobe PDF is a good way to go. However, you need to select the "Printer" button when in the Print dialog. Then select "PDF Options" from the drop-down menu. There should be some canned settings to choose from such as PDFX1a. Or, you can make your own with Distiller and place them in Library/Application Support/Adobe PDF/Settings.

I'm on OS 10.3.9; IDCS; Acrobat Pro 7.