Bitmapped .TIFFs

[DeleteYourself]

Let's say you have a b & w logo, and you want to make it a bitmapped .TIFF so that you can change its color in Quark easily. When you switch the mode in Photoshop to Bitmap, what method do you use for optimizing the settings?

(What do you put for output resolution and method in the dialogue box so that you don't lose quality?)


As an example, I'm using a b/w logo which is currently 150 dpi and approximately 2.5' x 1.5'.
(Small and sh!tty, I know, but that's what the client gave us.)

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Post Edited (DeleteYourself) : 1/13/2005 3:25:30 PM GMT

[Kool]

I think it has to be grayscale for Quark to be able to color it. (the key word here being 'think') /emoticons/cool.gif

Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?

[greyghost]

I make it a b/w, then a bitmap with 50% threshold, at about 1200 ppi ( a little excessive, but okay). Save as tif (you mentioned that already).
Then it's all set for Quark.

[Broacher]

>>Let's say you have a b & w logo, and you want to make it a bitmapped .TIFF so that you can change its color in Quark easily. When you switch the mode in Photoshop to Bitmap, what method do you use for optimizing the settings?

(What do you put for output resolution and method in the dialogue box so that you don't lose quality?)


As an example, I'm using a b/w logo which is currently 150 dpi and approximately 2.5' x 1.5'.
(Small and sh!tty, I know, but that's what the client gave us.)<<


Bwahahaha... 2 bits. My favourite subject. First, note that you can also colour change a greyscale in Quark (or PageMaker, or ID) real easily too. BUT... greyscales always go through the halftone screen in a PS workflow. Most evident in newsprint's coarse halftone dotting, but even at higher screen frequency, edge deterioration is persceptible. That's where little ol' bw TIFFs really shine-- they DON'T get halftoned, they recolour in a click, and they're 'sorta' self-masking.

Ideally, you want your printbound bw TIFF to be at 1200 ppi, at size. Why? A higher rez won't make any difference on most printing, and lower has the potential to loose line/edge detail. The problem though, is that with black and white, it's one colour, and any tonal effects (gradations, drop shadows etc.) would have to be 'presecreened' when you convert the greyscale to bitmap.

But that TIFF you have which is at 150 ppi? Is that grayscale? It likely is. In which case, the first thing you do is resample it up to 1200 in greyscale. Yes, this 'upsampling' is not usually something you do for an image, but it'll help a lot, trust me. Now if you have Photoshop CS, you have some more advanced upsampling, but even bicubic works fine.

At this point, you might want to whack the thing with some Unsharp Masking -- depends on what the linework/edges are doing. Sometimes, you have to actually add some Gaussian blur to 'smooth in the holes' and then level whack it back. In any case, if you want to preview what this will look like in bitmap, just stick a Threshold adjustment layer on top (you can even keep a level or curves adjusting layer under this to see what curves/tweaks work best). Then it's just straight to bitmap mode for the final conversion--output resolution at 1200, and use 50% threshold. Save as TIFF.

Now, the sizes and rezzes I've given are only starting points-- your target is 1200 ppi for the output. Adjust recipe according to subject and size requirements.

[DeleteYourself]

Thanks, Broacher! Great info...I think where I was going wrong was not upsampling the orig. 150 dpi image. I was getting the bitmap chunkies, and those are nooooo goooood. I'll try your method.

Kool, I think B/W or grayscale will work, but they key is it has to be a bitmapped TIFF to work.
(Bitmap mode after converted to b/w or grayscale, that is.)

Thanks, everyone!

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[DeleteYourself]

By the way, Broacher, what's the deal with all the different resampling options in CS? Are certain ones better than others? Specialization, maybe?

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[Broacher]

The new resamps are supposedly much better than the previous best (Bicubic). I have yet to test this though (only had CS for a few days!).

And please remember that what I described is for straight line originals only. And upsampling can't insert 'detail'. Very often it's a tradeoff between smooth edges and corner detail.

If... your source image has any real grays in it, or even a gradation-- it IS possible to still do the conversion to bitmap, provided you use the Halftone round dot settings to match your final output. This makes the results virtually unscalable--but, sometimes this is a terrific way to get a good crisp copy with just a mid-rez starting point.

[DeleteYourself]

It's straight b/w with not an extraordinary amount of detail, I'm playing with a few things, and I'll post a before and after...

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[DeleteYourself]

Here's what I came up with...should work fine for my purposes.

Thanks, Broacher!

http://www.dafenix.org/todd/logobitmapped.gif

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[Broacher]

See, I bet we'll get someone saying, 'ah hell, I could redraw that into a much more flexible vector format in ten minutes!' And maybe so. But in production, sometimes you only have 5. And a lot depends on what fonts you have in your collection---how accurate do you want to copy, and probably more importantly, what is your guess on reuse potential of the logo in the future?

TALES of a TANGENT Nature:
A weird true story: when I applied for the job I have here almost seven years ago, all of the candidates were given a 'test task' and asked to create some sample pieces for an upcoming event with materials that were supplied--- which included a mid rez bw logo file.

Well, I took that file, straightened it true-- and redrew it accurately in vector, and used it for the test AND, once I arrived, I had discovered that the mid rez logo file was THE only true original that they actually had of the logo. (Owch. That was a scary first clue to the production skill vacuum I came into). It's strange to think that the original vector work I did for a job application those many years ago now, is still in use and has been recreated a bazillion times in almost every kind of media imaginable (from birthday cakes to brickwork!).

[DeleteYourself]

Very true... I attempted to draw it out in vector at first, and it could have been done, no problem, but time was of the essence, and this method worked well-enough in a fraction of the time. It's tricks like this that help a good production worker become a great production worker. My job has recently been expanded from graphics in the sales/marketing department, to production and prepress. I really value learning shortcuts and techniques that will make me more efficient and more knowledgeable (READ: more valuable).

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[morea]

I'm impressed. What a great technique!

I refuse to have a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed.

[Broacher]

Bitmap is such a neglected, but highly useful colorspace... especially in prepress production. Some day I'll post some of my other bitmap centric techniques for creating supercrisp line/colour work (like comic art) that uses a combo of bitmaps and full colour work, or how to create a two colour high rez composite from a scan-- the things you learn in the trenches. If only Adobe supported the CCITT TIFF standard in InDesign and Photoshop Export -- it did in PageMaker and Acrobat! Unbelievable compression from an ancient format.

At least, that's my two bits worth. Hm... that'd make a good working title.

[kevinf]

Hey broacher, great tips. I've had to do quite a bit of b/w work recently and had come up with the most of the same methods as you. Great read for anybody that has little experience messing around with b/w artwork.

If my avatar has a colored background, its because your browser does not support 8-bit alpha transparency! Try FireFox! (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)

[Broacher]

Here's a few more for kindred 2 bit minds out there:

Making a great bw scan:

Easy, right? Just set your scanner driver to black and white, and go for the highest optical resolution, right?

Uh-uh. See, most scanners do a crappy job at bw scanning, and most use just one channel (usually green) to get the data for it. For the best results, and the most control, scan in greyscale, at the highest optical resolution you can get. Notice that I qualified that with 'optical'? That's because a lot of folks don't read the fine print on scanner spec sheets.

Anyhow, once you have your honker of a greyscale image in Photoshop it's time to make it even bigger! I guess I should qualify this-- the goal is to achieve the highest usable size you plan for the scan, at 1200 pixels per inch resolution (which is the optimium resolution for lineart, for most press work). So if you have to double or even triple your upsampling percentage to do so, this is one of those oh so rare moments where it really pays to do so.

Once you have it to the size you want, whack it with sharpening. I mean, really whack it -- like 500% with say, two runs of the unsharp masking filter set at 500/1/5. Okay? Now stick on that default Threshold layer and preview what's going to happen.

Here's a 'sub-tip': use layer masking to selectiviely control Thresholding. If you use two, or even three Threshold layers set to different thresholds, you can control where each Threshold dominates by using the layer mask of the Threshold layers. I find this very handy for times where the line weight starts to disappear in some areas, but not in others.

So you start with a main adjustment right on top of the greyscale (let's call it 'Coarse' for this discussion)you're thresholding and copy it to one on top (Cmnd or Ctrl J) . But back to the first (bottom) Threshold layer which we'll rename 'Fine' to make the fine line adjustments.

With multiple Threshold layers, it's the first layer above the image that dominates the Threshold effect.

So temporarily shut off 'Fine' and make your coarse adjustment with 'Coarse' to get the best 'average' thresholding effect. Remember, we' re going to recover lost detail with the Fine layer. So, shutoff Coarse, and adjust Fine to get the detail areas, and don't worry if you're losing stuff you like with Coarse, because once that's done, you just fill Fine's layer mask with black and then go back in with a white brush to paint in the recovery. It's pretty easy, actually.

Okay? Now it's simply flatten and convert to bitmap at the same rez as your original at 50% Threshold.

Maybe tomorrow we'll get into power pinhole filling.

[DeleteYourself]

Great technique. You're a wealth of knowledge in 2-bit graphics, Broacher. This thread should stickied in the Techniques section!

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