LZW - Yes or no?

[urstwile]

I was scanning through some posts and Rickself made mention of LZW being something that he looks for when preflighting a job.

Is LZW bad? I've been using it for years to compress my tiffs, based on it being a lossless compression format which saves on disk space.

The printers we work with tend to fix the problem files we send them without telling us (which I appreciate, but also hate, as I like to pride myself on sending things that don't require too much intervention). So this is a new one to me. Is it incompatible with certain RIPs? Or other problems?

I hope I haven't been walking around all this time with a piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe. :eek:

[PrintDriver]

If you use LZW, it's not a bad thing but please, please please tell your printer you are using it. Especially if you have been working with a printer for a while and haven't been using it, then suddenly start.

It isn't so much like having toilet paper on your shoe. (LOL @ the visual!)

Most printers know to check anyway because they assume it's there even if it's not, but every once in a while they get tripped up. Or you'll run across a printer who doesn't know better. And yes, the rip can do really weird things to an image or even a whole file if the image is compressed with LZW.

[jimking]

The old workflow we used (TrapWise and PressWise) at our plant would crash because of LZW. That was about 7 years ago. The two workflows I've used since then (Apogee and PrintReady) have no problem with LZW and I never check for it anymore. Printers are different when it pertains to their equipment. It would be helpful to let the printer know.

[urstwile]

Well, as I said in my post, I've been sending LZW files to printers for the last several years now; thus far no complaints. I haven't suddenly switched to them lately. I suspect they don't have a problem with them, as we tend to ask them for a disk back with any printer end corrections that might have been made, and pretty much all of the image files they send back to us still have the same date on them as the files I sent to them in the first place.

So...whew! However, it is good to know that LZW is not universally yummy. I do know that certain of our special case vendors ask for non-LZW files, and in those cases, I oblige. I'm anal about not having to have the printer mess with my files, because I know how much we used to bitch about some of our clients when I worked on the pre-press side, and I just don't want to be talked about that way behind my back. :p And it's always my tendency, where possible, to talk to the printer before sending files, at least in the case where it's a printer or vendor I haven't yet worked with. As a production artist, however, I often get things at the eleventh hour (my agency doesn't tend to accord my role very much respect when it comes to time frame), so I am constantly on the lookout for gotchas.

I sometimes feel like an indulgent spoiled child working at an agency, because I spent many years doing prepress before working here. Which is why forums like this are great, because it at least keeps me informed of the do's and don'ts as they evolve. Thanks guys! :)

[Painbunny]

We had problems with LZW a few years back, then we upgraded our systems. Works fine now. Changed the system to a different one a year back, still no problems. I think printers with up-to-date equipment/software don't have this problem.

I've encountered some that insist on non-LZW, but can handle it just fine. Had to work hard in here too to get the other workers to realize it's not that bad anymore.

[PrintDriver]

It's not bad to use it.
Some of the large format rips don't handle it well. Even in their very latest up-to-date incarnations. As I've often lamented, the software designers, Adobe and Quark (especially Quark) in particular, forget that there is even a print format bigger than 11" x 17". Rip updates for the larger machines are completely rip vendor dependent. Large format is at the end of their list as well.

We just have to look for LZW (or any of the other compressions) and transparency stacks and PS3 issues and image profiles and a whole bunch of other things. The list is long and a newb to the wide format printing industry may not know to check your file for these things. And there are a lot of newb print vendors out there that don't know how to use the equipment but are trying to get in on the wide format boom. Kinda like the GD field.

[rickself]

there are a lot of newb print vendors out there that don't know how to use the equipment but are trying to get in on the wide format boom. Kinda like the GD field.Buy a Dell, an HP printer, lease a store front and you're a wide format print vendor (and/or substitute wide format print vendor with Graphic Designer).