Scaling artwork

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    • #70710
      caddingt
      Participant

      I have ALWAYS worked with images (vector and raster) that are stored on a DAM server and placed in the InDesign document and scaled to size. The original artwork might be 20 x 30 in, but was placed in InDesign at whatever size was needed for the mechanical. As long as the effective resolution for the end use was legal, the original artwork was used and scaled. However, I am now at a shop where all mechanicals are built for shipping by sizing the artwork so that it fits in the mechanical at 100% and cropped exactly to whatever the picture box requires. When asked why that workflow was employed, the answer was that building custom cropped and scaled artwork made for the most efficient file from a file size standpoint.

      I have been in the business for a long, long time and I’m wondering how the rest of the world builds files. I think the file size efficiency argument is weak given the amount of manpower needed to perform the sizing and cropping, but I’m having doubts. Does the rest of the world indeed crop and scale artwork and I’m the anomaly? I need to know!

    • #70727
      Robert Whitney
      Participant

      Speaking from the view of an end-user (prepress for a commercial printer) I’d say very FEW designers are doing what you’re describing. Now, in many cases that’s not a problem, given faster Internet connections, cheaper large storage and better equipped workstations to deal with those bigger images. Sure, back in “the day” you could make an argument for saving space & transfer times whenever possible.

      To play devil’s advocate, I’ve seen some places transfer over1GB worth of packaged files for what effectively becomes a <10MB PDF, however. In those cases, I wonder why they’re not using smaller images, but then have to also think about having way too many sized versions of the same pics floating around their servers. And the chance that somebody on their end grabs an under-sized image probably isn’t worth the risk.

      It’s not an argument you’re likely to win, if this is the way it’s been done and they haven’t been burned by it. Sure, it’s a waste of time & needless work on your and but if it’s protocol – good luck!

    • #70728
      caddingt
      Participant

      THANK YOU! That’s what I suspected, but wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

    • #70734
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      That said, there are definitely times when scaling artwork can help a lot — specifically, image data (like Photoshop images) that are going to be reduced in size significantly, almost always need sharpening applied after scaling or else they’ll become blurry in the downsampling process. Note that InDesign does not resize images nearly as well as Photoshop does.

    • #70736
      caddingt
      Participant

      Thank you so much for the clarification. Now I get it. A lot of this work is very large and viewable at close range, so the artwork must be 300 dpi at actual size and, obviously, sharpness is critical.

      That said, can we make a rule of thumb about deliverables that aren’t gianormous like FSIs, ads, etc.? At what point does rescaling the original image in PS become a waste of time if the final file is a pdf x:1a?

    • #70740

      I’m in book publishing, and in most cases, the art is scaled and kept that way.

      BUT–sometimes if we positioned low-res art and the printer is going to create and tweak the high-res from film, we give them our scaling sizes.

      Then they send us the new art to reposition, but unfortunately, it’s the wrong size. They take our scaling numbers (let’s say 33 percent), and they scale the original art at 33 percent at their place, and when we reposition it we have to bring it in at 100 percent.

      Needless to say it’s a nightmare when they do that.

      Sometimes the publisher itself will resize the artwork on their end and do the same thing.

      It’s gotten to the point that when we get the high-res art we don’t update all. We do them one at a time

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