By: Anne-Marie
January 30 2007 • 7:12 AM
InDesignSecrets Podcast 041
Listen in your browser:
InDesignSecrets-041.mp3 (14.4 MB, 30:20 minutes)
or read the transcript of this podcast.
- Results from last episode’s Quizzler — and the winner!
- Various InDesign Newsbits
- Designer Wars! We discuss 3 issues that divide designers:
- Work locally or off the server?
- Set up file to trim size or add your own crops in larger page?
- Layered TIFFs or PSDs?
- Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Slug
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Pariah Burke’sQuarkvsInDesign.com (Adobe CS3 Logo Design Contest)
John Nack’s blog post about the CS3 logos (with images)
InDesign Conferences (Stockholm now, NYC in June)
Creative Suite Conference (Miami 2/28-3/3)
InDesign CS2 Keyboard Shortcuts Poster (use FEATHER coupon code for a 25% discount)
Listener Comment Line: +1-206-888-INDY (-4639)
Talk to us, baby: Leave a message!
I am with you Anne-Marie, off the server all the way.
I have a real problem with multiple versions (hate them) and this is what you get when you copy to and fro to the server.
It works here with a Mac Server really fine.
Mmm like the naming tip, I tend to avoid spaces too and will now keep that as “a thing”.
No reason to create your own crop marks in a pro environment, at all (some people are masocists).
PSD files all the way, more control in Indesign, plus I can use transparent backgrounds. Colours are a good reason too.
To local or not to local…?
Humm, I think I’m a little confused here. The way we work is that all projects are stored in a server and managed through Version Cue. When a designer opens the ID doc for the first time from the server, he is actually creating a local copy. He can than work on it ’til his heart’s content and save it locally. Finally when he’s ready to share with the world, he saves a version and actually copies the local file to the server where it is synchronized.
So from this perspective, isn’t version cue meant to use the best of both worlds? Just my two cents.;)
Regarding the psd vs. tiff debate: The one problem I’ve encountered when using layered psds for my background art is that if I need to use any text in that background art (text with effects I can’t replicate in Indesign), Indesign will not collect the fonts used in the PSD if they’re not used in the Indesign document.
I wonder if Adobe would be able to incorporate this kind of feature into a future release.
Thanks for the great podcast guys!
José, you are right: Version Cue is supposed to be the solution for this. I am looking forward to using the next version. I don’t know anything about the next version, but I can only assume that it will be better/easier than version 1.0!
John: That’s a great point. However, it’s not that important because vectors and text get rasterized when you print from InDesign anyway (unless you save as PDF). I hope that there will be better integration in CS3.
Working off the server.
I agree with David. I have worked for a few big companies and they NEVER work off the server. It slows your job down considerably, especially if everyone is working off the server. Plus it takes a long time to print big documents that are linked to the server and files can get corrupted easier.
For the cropmark issue, Rick Burress, a local InDesign Magician, recommended the following in order to impose more than one business card on one lettersize page.
Make the InDesign file the actual trimsize as you guys mentioned during the podcast. Then export it with cropmarks to pdf…and then reimport the pdf into an InDesign document with the desired “print page size” - now it is easy to impose more than one instance of the artwork with cropmarks.
First I make my way into American Way magazine… now I’ve finally reached the top — I’ve been mentioned in the InDesign Secrets podcast!
Hi there
Podcast 041 was my first one ever. Sorry guys, there is SO MUCH talking and so little real info. The utter inconclusiveness does not help any either. I am disappointed.
InDesignSecrets website is stunning, magic. I check it daily. Michael Murphy’s videocasts are also chock full of useful information.
The podcast didn’t work for me. Far too long for the amount of useful info.
Best regards
Gerd
How come Version Cue wasn’t even part of the discussion? doesn’t anyone use it? I’ve found that it works pretty well if you can figure out how to use it. It’s pretty poorly documented and therefore would be a great topic for discussion on a podcast.
Thom and Jose, you’re right that Version Cue is a third solution! I’m a big fan of VC myself and we use it in our studio … So few companies (the kind with servers) use VC though that the thought didn’t occur to us. Thom I have more info on VC (not too much more though) on my resource page here: http://senecadesign.com/designgeek/versioncue.html (link fixed).
And they had users asking “why is Photoshop so slow” and turns out they were trying to open/work on 350 MB images over the network. Remember, this was 10 years ago.
During this part of the discussion I wan’t thinking of VC at all. I had in mind all those companies I’ve worked with whose Windows users work off the server routinely. When IT deals with the art department, they have them work off the server as well, for the same reasons. When I first encountered this over a decade ago I was horrified
But since that time I’ve seen networks greatly increase in speed and stability. I’ve worked with dozens of companies whose designers routinely work off the server and think it’d be “weird” to constantly be copying from/to the server just to work locally, since they’re not having any problems or apparent slowdowns. So I’ve long since given up fighting against it … as long as your IT dept. knows what it’s doing and your files aren’t humongous, I can’t see anything wrong with working off a server on the LAN.
Hey Gerd, thanks for the feedback! I was going to go into how audio and video have different goals and strengths, but nevermind. Guess David and I are an acquired taste … lol.
I agree that Michael’s videocasts are fantastic!
Gerd, sorry you didn’t find the podcast more fulfilling, but I encourage you to listen to one or two others to see if you find them useful.
However, the lack of “conclusiveness” is just a fact of life. After 19 years in this business, I have concluded that there are no conclusions — there’s no one answer to anything. The trick is to understand the issues and then make decisions as well as you can in each individual instance.
Crop marks and why I need them - I design and produce labels for museum exhibitions and gang labels (which vary in size) on large sheets for printing. Then I mount the printed labels onto very thin Lexan and trim them out using the crop marks. It’s a great system. However, making the crop marks by hand is a pain when you have 100+ labels to process. I tried Cacidi Cropmarks 3.0 and it works but $85 is pricey for purchasing a program that does just one thing. There was a download on the Adobe Exchange site for a Crop Marks script but it doesn’t work for CS2.
Just a thought on how useful this podcast is… The week before I took my Adobe Certified Expert Exam, I downloaded all the episodes of ID Secrets to my “Rocker” and listened to them again, in the morning on the way to work and in the afternoon on my way home.
I remember to this day, that there were MANY questions on the test that I got right because of the valuable info I got from the podcasts. So, I just have to say that I owe my ACE “batch” to ID Secrets.
Thanks guys. Keep up the good work!
Anne Marie
Thanks for the response, but the link you sent was broken.
Also, in response to Gerd… I subscribe to both podcasts and think they are both excellent. One is simply more conversational in nature and the other is more instructional in nature. I would consider it a great loss if either started to imitate the other. My thanks go to all of you for your work on these podcasts.
Looks like everyone missed John Miller’s post.
John, the fix is simple…Save as PDF from Photoshop. That will retain vectors and text in the graphic. InDesign will rasterize all of that anyway with a PSD file.
Hey David and Anne-Marie
Sure I’ll listen to more of your podcasts. May just turn into a win-win situation.
Take care
Gerd
Regarding the need to make cropmarks in InDesign.
Years ago I worked with the art directors and designers at many book publishers such as Harper Collins, Random House, etc.
Ordinarily I agreed that you should set the trim size to the final output and allow ID to create the crops.
But the designers for the book covers (paperback and hardcover) had special template “mechanicals” that they used that were complete with trim marks, bleeds, safety marks, etc.
All of this was set within the page with tons of space between the “mechanical” and the actual electronic trim.
I never understood why they needed the special trim marks until they showed me how they used them.
The covers they worked on were laid out including back cover, spine, and front cover (for paperbacks) and added flyleafs for hardcover paper covers.
The problem for the design is that the final size of the spine would not always be known at the time that the designer began work on the cover. (Spine width depends on number of papers, type of paper, etc.)
So they would keep the spine as an element on this interior mechanical that could be expanded or contracted as necessary.
I remember the joy I felt when I discovered what the color “Registration” would do. I didn’t know how I could create the trims and other guides that needed to print on all the plates.
And then, several years later, Illustrator 5 finally added a Registration color.
Here’s a response to why you would need trim marks in InDesign. The short response is mock-ups and presentations.
If you have the will or desire, the ridiculously verbose answer follows:
As David and Anne Marie have mentioned, I generally like to make my document size the trim size. The situations where I find I need to create crop marks are when I am making mock-ups or creating presentation boards. I have had several clients that are incredibly visual and have a difficult time imagining a final product. I also have situations where I need to demonstrate how a final product will be used, or why some seemingly simple solutions are NOT good ideas, or if the final product will work in the intended location. For the sake of saving time and materials it helps to be able hand cut multiple items on a standard size of paper (sometimes expensive sample stock). So I have mocked up full books, tickets, packaging, signs, etc. and avoided some very costly mistakes in the process. These aren’t the layouts that I would be sending to a commercial printer.
It’s also been my experience that companies that print signs have a different criteria for the way they want to receive artwork. While I expect many of them to be using imposition software, I find that it is not unusual for many sign printers to be using lower versions of Illustrator to place there crop marks and impose artwork. I have been requested to place artwork x times up with crop marks more than once, particularly in a crunch. Why not start in Illustrator? Well, sometimes in a workgroup you don’t create the original artwork, you just make it printable. And, we’re talking about a lot of signs here with a consistent look that is easily managed with master pages and other features (like data merge) in InDesign.
Believe it or not, for presentations you may still be required to paste work up on some kind of board (matte, foam, etc.). Depending the nature of what you are presenting, sometimes InDesign is the best tool to present and manage the work in an efficient manner. So in these instances crop marks are a necessity.
And of course there are also the personal projects that you may create that are intended to be small enough runs that it would be insane to send to a commercial printer (Hand bound books, valentines, personal invitations, etc). Recently I created birthday invitations and thank you cards for my sons birthday party. I used InDesign’s data merge feature to personalize the invitations and to place personalized pictures of individual attendees in the thank you cards. These were placed 16 up on Tabloid cardstock with a semigloss finish on one side, and hand cut.
Sere, great comments! Thanks for taking the time to spell it all out from your perspective/experience.
I still don’t understand, though, why you’d need to make your own crops in the ID file if you’re doing your own one-up trimming (such as your presentations example).
16-up on tabloid I can understand, or jamming multiple pieces on the same sheet of expensive stock … not everyone has Acrobat or whatever plug-in is needed for Acro to do that automatically.
Regardless … You’re obviously quite experienced in the field and know when it makes sense to make your own crops. I had in mind the scores of newbies (or non-professionals) I’ve run into who think that the Width and Height fields in the New Document dialog box refer to the width and height of the paper they’ve got loaded in their printer, and not the final trim size of the actual document. (Paper size is of course specified in the Print dialog box.) It may be hard to believe but there are a significant number of ID (and Quark) users who do this routinely, and thus lose the benefits of automatic crops/bleed marks when printing or exporting to PDF.
I’m local!
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If the network is STABLE - it’s ok to go for the server based files but it only takes an issue with the network at the point of saving the file once to realise the benefit of opening and saving local. Far too easy to have files corrupted at the save point at my old job so I NEVER do it anymore.
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On with the crop marks - Folders and custom cutting forms is something I had to deal with when I was working in the repro department of a large printers. We used to impose everything else from business cards to magazines - but when it came to folders with all sorts of different flap configuration, we needed to add our own crop marks.
Sandee, I can understand the need for adjusting trim marks for book spines. But check this out: Dan Rodney wrote a script to handle all the spine info for you. Pretty cool, especially when the spine has to change at the last minute.
Work locally or off the server?
I work in an editorial office where the editors put in their texts with incopy and working on server is necessary but slows down the process dramatically because indesign seems to load forever on the incopy documents. Even with a really good network connection.
At work we have always worked directly on the server as soon as a layout is agreed upon. Our Mac Xserve and fast network generally works without problems. However your comments of using “web-friendly” naming policy seems decisive on the unix based server. Finder might start showing folder names double or folders might disappear occasionally if this is not respected.
Furthermore if you make hyperlink destinations inside a InDesign document they will not work when exported to pdf if special characters are used in the file name – simply because Acrobat converts the characters of the link destination to other characters. In any case “æ” becomes 3/4.
Crop marks. As well as design I also do pre-press work for a commercial printer. There are times when I need to set up swing tag lables for example, where the front and back are stepped, say 4up each, on the one worksheet the size of which is based on the stock the printer wants to use. Both sides of the worksheet is printed on a work and turn basis. My printer client therefore requires me to place crop marks. My InDesign file is exported to pdf for either film or direct to plate. So, being able to automate crop mark creation is a bonus for me.
Server or local?
No brainer for me, I’m a freelancer. It has to be local. Just getting the hang of VC.
Love your podcasts. This is the first time I’ve plucked up the courage to comment though.
-T (from New Zealand)
With the server or local, we have always worked from the server as a rule. And although Quark has more problems, Indesign is very stable and we’ve had no problems.
With the PSD vs Layered Tiff - I think that it depends on your medium. (as in where it’s going) As far as for printing is concerned, always PSD for editing, and a flat tiff for placement, if that cannot be done, a layered tiff will do, but as far a my experience has been , there have been many issues related to printing or trying to print with a PSD placed. Mainly problems are within RIP, or flatening procedures that most printers MUST use. There are of course some High end major companies that may be able to handle these natively, but with your average user, I think it’s a bad idea to recommend a PSD placed, far more can go wrong… please coment on this in the show, as I feel it’s important to consider who and what you are intending your design to be used for.
Love the shows by the way! Keep up the great work!
These are all great comments; thanks folks for jumping in with your experiences. TJ, wen you use a layered TIFF or PSD, InDesign “flattens” the layered file and sends it to the printer, so you should have no problem. However, this isn’t the same thing as the transparency flattener flattening your document. (I argued with Adobe for a long time about this, saying that people would get confused if they used the word “flatten” for two different things. And here we are.)
Flattening a layered Photoshop file means squishing it down into a single layer, just like choosing Layer > Flatten in Photoshop. Flattening in InDesign (or AI) means faking a transparent effect by breaking it down into lots of little opqaue pieces (often with dozens or hundreds of clipping paths).
The only time when both happen is when the layered PSD/TIFF has no Background layer (so there’s transparency) and the image is sitting on top of other objects on your InDesign page. Then ID has to flatten the file and then apply transparency flattening. If you use High Quality transparency flattening, this generally works quite well. (Except on certain RIPS, with certain people… insert all disclaimers here that we’ve talked about in the past.)
We discuss the relative merits of saving your documents to a server in this episode, but Adobe has recently pointed out that this is a bad idea, especially with Mac OS 10.5.3.