Experts Help Please, InDesign PDF Problem

[enigma2212]

Hi,

traditionally am a web designer and so am new to the world of print graphics therefore i was wondering if you clever people could help me.

Basically i have been asked to produce large artwork for a pop up banner 800x2100mm and another banner 6'.2"x2'.
I am going to design these in quarter scale with the resolution at 4x recommended. is this correct?

my main problem is the high res pdf...when i ask printers what resolution they want the artwork in they just say "press ready high res pdf" what does that mean resolution wise??? what resolution do i set the bicubic down sampling to in the pdf settings if my art work is in 25% scale??

I know for 100% it is downsample to 300dpi for above 450dpi.

[CkretAjint]

It really depends on the printer. Try speaking to the production guy at the print house and see what he says, not the sales rep. I think they are just assuming that you are designing it in Illustrator, where resolution doesn't really matter.

[MikeTheVike]

A pop up banner is usually printed digital wide format, Not sure about your printer, but our rip doesn't take pdf's. We usually print using eps or tiff files. I design bannerstands at 100% at 100dpi.

[PrintDriver]

Definitely contact the printer and speak to a tech. As Mike says, most wide format guys don't take PDFs.
You can design it at 1/4 scale at 4x the resolution but you need to know what the recommended output res is.
For popups it can vary between 100 and 200dpi but only the printer you use will know what is optimum for his machines.

[julyski]

InDesign can handle a canvas size that big, why not just design it a 100% size?

[CkretAjint]

InDesign can handle a canvas size that big, why not just design it a 100% size?

Final file size (as in memory), plus it would take FOREVER to move about and save.

[PrintDriver]

No it wouldn't.
No one seems to understand the part about scale and resolution.
Even if you do it 1/4 scale with images at 400% output resolution, it makes no difference in terms of memory usage. the image file would (or rather should) be the same size. And InD uses low res placement... You only work in Hi Rez preview if you have to.

800mm x 2100mm is only 31.5" x 82.68". That is tiny in large format world.
So is the 74" x 24" banner.
I'd do a file that size at 100%.
Using scale unecessarily is time consuming.

Don't forget your bleeds. :D

[CkretAjint]

Right, but quarter scale at 100 dpi, verse full scale at 300 dpi is a huge difference... which is what I was referring too. Not reduce size but increase dpi to match.

[julyski]

Right, but quarter scale at 100 dpi, verse full scale at 300 dpi is a huge difference... which is what I was referring too. Not reduce size but increase dpi to match.Yes:
100 dpi @ 1/4 scale would be 25 dpi effective resolution
300 dpi @ 1/1 scale would be 300 dpi effective resolution

That is a huge difference, but I don't get what your point is. If you worked in 1/4 scale, you should be placing 1200 dpi images in your layout to get an effective resolution of 300 dpi on your final output.

[CkretAjint]

I have worked in quarter scale.... for over a year. and you are correct, but sometimes the printer doesn't want/need files THAT large in dpi. When I printed large format graphics they only needed to be around 150 dpi (at the lowest) half-scale.

[PrintDriver]

75dpi at final scale is ok depending on final size. Most of the really big theatre stuff I do (16' x 40'+) is run at 35dpi final size, which would be 140dpi @ 1/4 scale. But I work in 1:10 @ 350dpi at that size. So much easier to do conversions. Decimal points and inches = no brainer.

The real thing here is that the OP needs to find out what the final output resolution is and work from there. Anything we could tell them might be wrong.