what could have happened?

[infinity]

Do you all remember me talking about working on a magazine project in school? Those of you who do should be able to answer this question.

The magazine has now been printed, and I was able to view one of them today, I noticed that some of the illustrations were pixelated though.

I did my half of the illustrations in illustrator and others did their completely in photoshop.

the pages were then imported into indesign to be designed for the final layout.

they were saved as eps files, what could be the reason for some of the illustrations coming out pixelated? It wasn't like it was all of them just a few.

I wasn't responsible for designing the layout of the pages, or getting them printed, so once I did the illustrations I was pretty much done. So i wasn't really following the whole process of it.

I'm just curious as to why some of them got messed up and some didn't can anyone answer this?

[VDM]

Could be anything.

-Photoshop files are raster and don't print as sharp as vectors

-The Photoshop files may have been saved low res

-The final PDF may have been exported out of InDesign in compressed mode

-A link could be broken

[Bob]

I vote the last one. The 'mills' that print out these class project packages probably don't include link maintenance as part of their responsibility. (Nor, realistically, should they)

[PrintDriver]

The biggest error?
No proof...

What was saved as .eps?
The indesign file pages or the links?

Saving Illustrator files as .eps opens up chances for a world of hurt.

But my guess is the links weren't sent or weren't packaged properly if they were.

[kemingMatters]

Originally Posted by PrintDriver

The biggest error?
No proof...

What was saved as .eps?
The indesign file pages or the links?

Saving Illustrator files as .eps opens up chances for a world of hurt.

But my guess is the links weren't sent or weren't packaged properly if they were.

To mee it sounded like they exported the indd to eps for who knows why, so I would bet that the raster art was embedded at 72 ppi (I think that is the default setting for export to eps from ID, could be wrong as I've never attempted to export to eps from ID)

[infinity]

I was going to go with the fact that part of the illustrations were done in photoshop. as the first problem. THEN them being imported into indesign and saved straight from there as eps files probably added to the issue.

When i did my files, they were saved/exported at 300dpi I generally save all my stuff at higher res.

according to vdm's list, im going to go ahead and say all the above (considering the people who was doing this)

needless to say this doesn't look like a magazine, it ended up looking like some little booklet, with the page layout of a magazine, because it was printed on thicker paper, something that felt like 60lb stock. maybe slightly thinner.

[PrintDriver]

I'm wondering if the people in charge of getting that thing printed got a failing grade...
?

[Bob]

infinity, did they run ID's Prepress check tool before exporting?

Why didn't they use PDF instead of EPS again?

[infinity]

printdriver all I have to say is if they did then im going to be highly upset, because I was in the group and that would mean me getting a bad grade too.

bob I have no clue, like I said I wasn't following the process after I finished my part, I was leaving it up to the group directer and assist. director.

thinking back now i should have followed it, considering one person in the group when we first started all this said she uses photoshop for everything, and the rest of the group agreed. I just shook my head. the comment threw up some red flags but I never thought they would be this naive as to what to do.

My guess is they didn't use pdf because they didn't know what they were doing.

[Bob]

That's why they call it a 'committee'.

(They should have all been committed.)