making print-ready files from quark

[mahendra]

Owing to very odd circs, I've had to set up b&w comic book pages in quark 5 … placed 1200dpi bitmap art files in quark, then constructed boxes, panels, etc in quark, then set type. So far, so good …

If poss, I'd like to make these quark pages into stand-alone tiffs for future offset press use. I could save them as EPS in quark, at 1200 dpi greysacle, then drag those files into photoshop and convert to bitmap, still at 1200. Naturally, the type will suffer but I can live with that by stripping in type in Illustrator or quark later on (long story)

but will the files themselves be really up to par as far as offset press-ready goes? I examined them carefully in photoshop, they lost a very slight amount of detail but seem OK. Will staircasing (or worse) result when they're ripped & ink hits paper?

I've had problems before with this sort of thing before but I'm assuming that since my source art was 1200dpi bitmap, the conversion to greyscale and then back again won't be a serious loss of detail as long as I stay 1200 dpi thru the workflow …

any advice greatly appreciated

[eugenetyson]

Why would you make the Quark page into tiff? Generally PDF is the preferred method of receiving files these days, why not make PDF of the comic you've layed out in Quark.

The type remains type and the images remain images, no loss in quality for text.


You can still leave the images in Quark and save each edition of the book with new text, without faffing about in photoshop.

[GrumpyKate]

Echo Eugene. . . pdfs are the way to go.

[mahendra]

thanks, you're right … I'm very grateful for your sound advice! A blueline is always good, plus there will a lot of copy to proof anyway, big job (but fun!)

my brain needs sleep!

these files will be interspersed through-out a larger, text-only book, quark or indesign, I don't know yet. PDF will place fine, the main thing is to keep the distiller settings hi-res …

I have an ancient set-up, distiller 3, quark 5 … this distiller has few options & frightens me at times

so I should make certain to make a b&w ps file in quark at 2400 dpi, then distill that at 1200dpi with monochrome set @ CCIT group4, ignore color/greyscale settings, no compressions of anything, type embedded

that should be hi-res, b&w art suitable for all offset, right?

[eugenetyson]

It's been a long time since I printed anything to postscript, sorry I can't remember what settings to use.

[PrintDriver]

You might want to discuss settings with the printer?

[mahendra]

thanks everyone! this is a great forum, genuinely useful and friendly

I will double-check my distillation recipe with the graphics guys I have to hand this job off to … I've found that PDF distillation can be a murky business

onwards & upwards, sort of!

[eugenetyson]

See if they'll send you a .joboptions file with their settings.

[moni]

Collect for output, burn to DVD, send to printer, get proof, sorted.!

[mahendra]

just to clarify, it's not quite that simple, my end of the job is to be integrated into a much larger job downstream … collection, etc., would make potential headaches.

The PDF idea is elegant & foolproof, assuming that I'm not a fool!