How to get what you want...

[CkretAjint]

Just received this email to our dept as a generic email. Does this guy REALLY think we will help him after this email?


I am looking for a jpeg image of the (division) logo. My team at (city location) is moving into a mall location and the mall will create a sign today for the top of our kiosk display. You guys take to long to design pieces for our fast moving team so we are going to let the mall design the sign. I have the standard (corporate) jpeg logo but I thought that a (division) jpeg logo would be more appropriate. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

*sigh*

[JgS]

Did he pay for the logo? If so then I think you have to send it. I'd just give it to him and run. Who needs clients like that?

[Kool]

LOL at Let the mall design the sign.

[CkretAjint]

He works for our company. So we have to give the logo to him. I just didn't think it was nice to ask and then insult us. ALL of the logos he can use are on our corporate website for download, so I just emailed him the link where to find them.

[captain spanky]

just send an email back entitled: "hahahaha"
with the message: "hahah haha hahah ahahahahahahah ahaha. Regards."
:D

[garricks]

:eek:

Gee, did the disc that had that logo on it just crash? Now, where did I put the backup...? I'll get back to you. Please hold your breath.

Fast-moving ≠ Quality

[Broacher]

Jpeg for signmaking? Sokay. Don't forget there's always that compression quality slider!

Trick production question: for an all-line, 2400 pixel square, full colour, solid logo, raster format-- which file would be bigger to hand-off: jpg or TIFF?

TPQ2: How would it be possible to send a 72 dpi, 240px square copy of the same logo in JPG format and achieve even better results than the above files in print or large format?

[Riya]

1)depends on compression settings

2)Livetrace? The logo is square?

Or, it is done in illy but with raster settings at 72dpi?

[Broacher]

1) Sure. But let's say medium-to best for the jpg.
2) Nope. Not square. Type and linework. And it is a jpg-- you could view this in any browser. Low rez (72 ppi). No Live Trace involved. In fact, the method has been around for at least 10 or more years.

Hint: PageMaker users might know this one.

[Riya]

MM, It's been a looong time since I've used pagemaker. I gotta run though. I'll give it another go after work if someone else hasn't beaten me to it.

[Broacher]

TPQ3: (I'm feeling generous today)

I have two files of the same photo. Same resolution. Same pixel dimensions. Same colour depth (24 bit colour). One is a TIFF which is 149k. The other is a JPG at 770k. No extra layers, paths or anything here. Can you explain the file size discrepancy?

[doctorfoz]

does the tiff have LZW compression?
or is there a difference if you save for mac or pc?

[Broacher]

No and no.

[Mynock]

Pixel Order?

[Broacher]

Nooo-oooop.

Is that a wolf over there?

[CkretAjint]

Rgb/cmyk?

[budafist]

Dear so and so,

Your previous email was too fast moving for me. Please post your request via snail mail so that we process your request more efficiently.

[CkretAjint]

LOL Buda... Nice one! ;)

[budafist]

;) You should wait a couple days and then ask him for a deadline for the jpg to be sent by.

[urstwile]

I wanna know the answers to Broacher's TPQ's. :D

[garricks]

I wanna know the answers to Broacher's TPQ's. :D
Me too... “wolf over there” Is that a clue?

[Riya]

Kay Broacher, you have us all stumped!

[Broacher]

RECAP: Trick production question: for an all-line, 2400 pixel square, full colour, solid logo, raster format-- which file would be bigger to hand-off: jpg or TIFF?

A: All-line high rez line logo. Typically that's one, two, maybe three colour at the most. That's if it's truly a line copy. And that means no anti-aliased edges. And THAT means you have a very small number of unique colours. One, two or three -- plus the background colour (white). Let's say four unique colours. Sooo.... move to indexed RGB with an optimized palette with 4 colours (half-a byte per pixel). Not many people realize that TIFFs can be saved as indexed RGB, but when you have the right image, they are incredibly compact. And at high resolutions, will easily reduce to a much smaller file than JPGs, even JPGs at lowest quality settings. And unlike JPGs, those edges will be absolutely artifact free.

TPQ2: How would it be possible to send a 72 dpi, 240px square copy of the same logo in JPG format and achieve even better results than the above files in print or large format?

A: Clipping path trickery. Few people -- with the possible exception of old-time PageMaker users -- realize that you can embed a clipping path into a JPG. Therefore, a low rez jpg of a logo with an embedded clipping path can be constructed to give you what essentially is a solid colour clipped by a path -- precisely clipped-- if it's dropped into a layout app that supports JPG clip paths (ID and PageMaker for example).

BUT, to make that low rez image clean to clip, you have to make the colour overlap the edges. You have to expand the colour. Essentially, you get this very clogged up looking, low-rez jpg when viewed in a browser, say-- that would normally cause a prepress operator to pull the grenade pin but when it's placed into layout--nice and clean.

And for TPQ... well, let's wait and see if anyone else can come up with something.

[Paj]

RECAP: Trick production question: for an all-line, 2400 pixel square, full colour, solid logo, raster format-- which file would be bigger to hand-off: jpg or TIFF?

A: All-line high rez line logo. Typically that's one, two, maybe three colour at the most. That's if it's truly a line copy. And that means no anti-aliased edges. And THAT means you have a very small number of unique colours. One, two or three -- plus the background colour (white). Let's say four unique colours. Sooo.... move to indexed RGB with an optimized palette with 4 colours (half-a byte per pixel). Not many people realize that TIFFs can be saved as indexed RGB, but when you have the right image, they are incredibly compact. And at high resolutions, will easily reduce to a much smaller file than JPGs, even JPGs at lowest quality settings. And unlike JPGs, those edges will be absolutely artifact free.

TPQ2: How would it be possible to send a 72 dpi, 240px square copy of the same logo in JPG format and achieve even better results than the above files in print or large format?

A: Clipping path trickery. Few people -- with the possible exception of old-time PageMaker users -- realize that you can embed a clipping path into a JPG. Therefore, a low rez jpg of a logo with an embedded clipping path can be constructed to give you what essentially is a solid colour clipped by a path -- precisely clipped-- if it's dropped into a layout app that supports JPG clip paths (ID and PageMaker for example).

BUT, to make that low rez image clean to clip, you have to make the colour overlap the edges. You have to expand the colour. Essentially, you get this very clogged up looking, low-rez jpg when viewed in a browser, say-- that would normally cause a prepress operator to pull the grenade pin but when it's placed into layout--nice and clean.

And for TPQ... well, let's wait and see if anyone else can come up with something.

very interesting, i like this game :)

with your first question, would saving as a GIF have the same effect?

and with the second - would you just define the clipping path in PS, save it as a JPG and its all good to go?

[Broacher]

Yes, same effect with GIF only you can't store resolution metadata, and... well, that would have helped give the answer away, wouldn't it?

Second: yes. Just define in PS, save as JPG. Good to go (provided you 'blatted' the linework to act as a solid 'bleed' beyond the clipping path edges). At least-- in ID or PageMaker. Don't know about other layout apps.

Care to take a stab at my third question: the bigger JPG?

[doctorfoz]

is the image just white? and the JPEG artifacts adds something to the file size?

[Broacher]

No, it's a regular photo. Face. Full colour. And no, artifacts do not add to file size.

Aroooooh!!!

[doctorfoz]

side note: while trying to figure out Broacher's puzzle - which has me more stumped than an ex-mrs beatle - I found this:

http://designer-info.com/Web/bmp_tiff_jpeg_gif.htm

quite interesting reading

[Riya]

embedded color profile?

[Broacher]

^^ No, but that's a very good guess! (Wish I had thought of it)

[createdirector]

I would tell him that if he wants people to work for him and not against him he should try asking questions like a grown up. You catch more flies with honey and corporate design teams are notoriously overworked so if someone can't plan ahead that certainly isn't the design team's fault.

:)

[urstwile]

Poo, I want to know the answer. I'm as frustrated by this as I am by the "two women get on a bus. One gets off at State and Main, the other one does too, but buys an orange and a pickle at the 7-11 on the corner. How many pickles does the other woman already have in her shopping bag?" type of question.

[Broacher]

Ever notice that as you grow older and learn more about the rules to life, it's always the exceptions that give you the greatest insight to the 'rules of the rules'?

Way back in Pshop 7, Adobe decided to really crack open wide the full architectural power of the Tagged Image File Format ... er, 'format'. TIFFs were suddenly capable of storing just about everything that a PSD could. Text layers, adjustment layers, notes, you name it. About the only thing you couldn't do was save a TIFF in Photoshop's unique 'Multi-channel' colour mode.

So why did they bother to do that anyhow when ID and AI were at the same time gaining more complete support for the PSD file format? One reason is that unlike PSD, a complex TIFF file could still be 'placed' into any older layout app--provided that the file was saved with the layers visible. The TIFF file always saved a composite (flattened) version as an internal layer in the file which was functionally separate from the rest of the file-- and backwards compatible to older apps.

Interesting stuff, but useful? Yes. One of the things I discovered is that when sending multi-layered Photoshop files as TIFF files over the net, I could create a file that was about 50% smaller than the PSD equivalent -- but only if I shut off the visibility of all the layers first, and saved the TIFF with LZW compression. That's a non-destructive compression scheme that works very well in TIFFs.

Sokay, what does that have to do with TPQ3? One of the hitherto un-accessed options of the TIFF architectural scheme was the inclusion of OTHER compression options besides LZW compression. Including (ready?): JPG compression.

That's right. Since Pshop 7, it's been possible to save a TIFF using JPG (lossy) compression.

I think a lot of people may have seen that in the save to TIFF dbox, but never really understood what it does. In fact, it doesn't do very much at all from a prepress and design standpoint. It DOES create what is essentially a JPG inside a thin shell of the TIFF file format. (There's my wolf in sheep's clothing clue). But the real problem for users is that TIFFs saved with this compression can only be used by Adobe apps -- and only the newer versions.

So... in general production terms, is it good for anything? I guess you could look at it as a way to make large, multi-layered PSDs even smaller for emailing, if you're willing to risk JPG compression artifacting. But seeing as most production places are unrealistically phobic towards any kind of JPG compression to begin with, I don't know how frequently this would be looked at as any kind of workflow solution.

For the most part, it's a curiousity. But that's how you DO make a TIFF copy of an image that is smaller than a normal JPG. You just save the TIFF using JPG compression set at a much lower quality standard.

Ouch. Sorry if I caused anyone needless braincell death. But it was fun (for me). What do you think about a weekly 'TPQ of the Week' thread? Anyone interested? I gotta say, it's these kind of questions that I enjoy trolling graphic design forums for more than anything. I'd like to get somebody with good web production experience to contribute too. Anyone?

[longboy]

Thanks Broacher, I'm always interested in little file-format/production tidbits.

[Riya]

Sounds like a lot of fun Broacher. I'm afraid that I don't have much to contribute on the asking side, but count me in for stupid guesses.

two women get on a bus. One gets off at State and Main, the other one does too, but buys an orange and a pickle at the 7-11 on the corner. How many pickles does the other woman already have in her shopping bag?

Green!

[tuliptree]

I'd be very interested in the learning part from your TPQOTW Broacher. Much of that was beyond my scope of knowledge so I couldn't even begin to make a guess, but I enjoyed following it, so you have at least one avid reader right here! :)

http://forums.viachicago.org/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif (javascript:add_smilie() at urst and Riya's story problem !

[garricks]

broacher, I’m in for the guessing bit!

usrt and Riya, when I do those, the actual question is about someone who stayed on the bus!

[urstwile]

I think that's a great idea, Broacher.