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Author Topic: Posting PDF files on FT Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 03-05-2010 07:43 PM                        What is the proper way to post a PDF file on Film-Tech. For example, if I wanted to share a fax notice from a studio related to a film delivery.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-05-2010 07:56 PM                     If it is that important you can email it in. Normally people just post what the notice says.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-05-2010 08:03 PM                     You can also treat it as a graphic (turn it into a JPG...real easy if it is not a locked file...if it is locked file, then it probably shouldn't be posted).  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-05-2010 09:22 PM                     What's wrong with PDF files? JPEG images often suck oily ass. A JPEG image is a mere, clunky bitmap image. A PDF can contain an entire sophisticated publication filled with text formatted in high quality embedded fonts, PDF/X press quality photo imagery and vector-based graphics that drop kick the living fucking hell out of stupid JPEGgey substitutions. Bitmap based logos only suck. Have fun scaling up those stair step squares, Chester! The Internet has been great for the most part since its invention, but one of its biggest drawbacks has been the extreme idiocy of wannabe graphic artists who don't seem able to tell the difference from a vector graphic and raster/bitmap graphic. Before the Internet became really popular most logos were traded as EPS format vector-based art files. After the Internet became popular the world's collective IQ dropped 100 points and every fucking idiot out there started only trading asshole fuck face JPEG images. If you didn't guess already I HATE THOSE DAMNED THINGS!!! If someone can't tell the difference between vector/raster and doesn't know the appropriate usage and output for a logo (or entire publication) he has no business doing any paid graphics work at all. Merely having a downloaded warez copy of Photoshop does not make anyone anywhere a qualified graphic artist.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 03-05-2010 10:04 PM                        I'm just thinking about the broadcast faxes we get from Technicolor or the studios. I now many on here get them, but not everyone. My scanner/fax/printer allows me to scan documents to PDF. It makes it easier than retyping the who notice.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 03-05-2010 10:54 PM                     quote: Justin Hamaker My scanner/fax/printer allows me to scan documents to PDF. It makes it easier than retyping the who notice. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is your friend. It'll take the image you scan and give you the text, although you usually have to proofread it for the rare mistake. Then copy+paste.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-06-2010 07:33 AM                     Chill out Bobby. Think about it...if it is going to be posted on the forum, a JPG version of a scanned pdf isn't going to be at the resolution where it would make much difference. I agree it isn't the way you would want to have an original but with a 550 pixel limit on width...there is going to be a resolution bottleneck. I was going for fast and easy with a touch of good-enough. Just like I've learned to do with my digital photos...I shoot with RAW but also have a small JPG version at the same time. The RAW file gets stored on my hard drive(s) and the JPG, if I'm using it will get uploaded to whatever (e.g. Facebook). The JPGs are good enough and require zero effort for places where the file isn't going to be blown up...quite frankly, I'd rather have a low-rez version wafting about the Internet. When I did the AFI/Silver photos...again, I started with the highest rez I had of the image...did any touchups (and I didn't do many as that is not the type of photographer I am...I like things more natural than "fixed") and then outputted at the required resolution. There is a HUGE difference between the originals and what was posted. However, at the size they are viewed...there is almost no difference. If you look at the pictures and find the one on the CP200 and the next one that shows the formats programmed in. They are actually the same photo...it is just that the one with the formats I zoomed in on the original and then outputted the small JPG from that. You could never have blown up the already small version of the CP200 and gotten anything more than a gray blob with some off-gray blobs in it. EPS are great...and coming from the Mac side of computing, I have been using them for a long time...all of my printers had to have Postscript due to my Mac preference...also since I used Adobe fonts. I'll say that True Type also mucked things up...that that it didn't get scalable fonts to the masses but that the quality of the fonts are normally much lower...there is no need to reiterate your rant against the knockoff fonts...you are preaching to the preacher. Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-06-2010 11:40 AM                     I'm sorry, I just had to have a little fun venting about the extremely common problem of logos and graphics being produced in bitmap form rather than finished correctly in vector form. This is a major problem in the graphics industry. Too many wannabe graphic designers just use Photoshop or whatever image editor for the job. That's a horribly inefficient choice because it causes lots of time to be wasted with vector-conversion efforts later. Or you just see the limited resolution "logo" blown up in various sizes and often fuzzy looking. Professional quality standards are ignored. Many people simply do not understand the concept of designing with the output device (printer, computer screen, video, etc.) in mind. Vector-based graphics are scalable and look sharp at any size. And they don't consume nearly as much hard disc space. I don't have a problem with a graphics person adding bevels and other arguably cheesy Photoshop junk to a logo, but at least start with an original that is vector-based. Create the original version of a logo in vector format using Adobe Illustrator or another vector graphics editor then paste the vector paths into Photoshop for the filter cheese festival. I think the availability of Inkscape, a free, open source vector graphics editing program, takes away the excuse "I can't create vectors because I don't have Illustrator." PDF kind of sucked back in the 1990s, but it has steadily improved into a fantastic publication storage format. Provided the PDF is created properly the file should be 100% cross platform compatible. But you still have to be careful about the fonts you choose to embed. Older Postscript Type 1 fonts don't cross platforms very well. It would be nice to be able to attach a PDF to a Film-Tech forum post. I'm sure some guidelines could be set regarding file size limits as well as photo quality inside the PDF -if the person posting the PDF created it or has some control on editing it. Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign files are built upon PDF. Such files can be altered in Illustrator and InDesign if the PDF is saved in the right way. BTW, I'm not a big fan of True Type fonts for their use of quadratic splines as well as the generally lower quality you see in so many freeware TT fonts. The font ends up with more anchor points than what you see with a similar font professional output to Postscript Type 1. Of course the whole True Type versus Type 1 thing continues to live on in OpenType since OTF can contain either True Type or Type 1 outlines.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-06-2010 12:13 PM                     I agree with Bobby. JPEG is only a destination format that should be used only upon completion of a project when it's time to distribute. All work should be done with Illustrator or Photoshop in 16-bits, preferably with camera RAW or DNG as the input format. Then the image should be edited and stored in its originating application. If the receiver of the information can handle it, those Illustrator or Photoshop files should be sent. Only if the final destination of the work is going to be on the internet or if the receiver can not process files in another format should they be converted to JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc. "JPEG" is to "picture" as "photo print" is to "negative."  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-06-2010 12:41 PM                     I don't think you will get any argument and I don't know how this got into being a discussion about graphic arts...Justin just wanted to post a scan he made of a letter. There is nothing graphical about it (I think he said it was a FAX after all). He could skip a step...the native format for the scanner should be a TIFF...have the scanner scan in as a TIFF (will far exceed the resolution of the original fax)...then upload the scan as a JPG/GIF within the 550 pixel constraint...Again, converting TIFF to JPG or GIF should not be too hard at this point...and skip the PDF thing all together. As for PDF...I think it is a great format as a destination...it often preserves the essentials of the original but tends to also lock it and make it (freely) viewable by others. And by lock-it, I'm not referring to the security of the PDF but that the document won't be edited so easily. Steve  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 03-06-2010 01:10 PM                        quote: Randy Stankey "JPEG" is to "picture" as "photo print" is to "negative." And also what "interframe compression" is to "intraframe compression". **waits for Julio to chime in** Even when working in video, I always ask for EPS files for company logos. I don't always get them, but I try.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-06-2010 01:56 PM                     If Justin was able to post a PDF he wouldn't have to down-sample the FAX image to a mere 550 pixel width. The 550 pixel limit is satisfactory for a lot of simple photographs, but it just won't cut it for a printed page with text, graphics and photos. Unless the type is set at a large size it probably will not be legible when the page is down-sampled to the 550 pixel width. quote: Steve Guttag As for PDF...I think it is a great format as a destination...it often preserves the essentials of the original but tends to also lock it and make it (freely) viewable by others. And by lock-it, I'm not referring to the security of the PDF but that the document won't be edited so easily. There are ways around those limits. Illustrator and InDesign have PDF creation settings where you can leave Illustrator or InDesign editing capability left intact. When the setting isn't applied the PDF creation engine will take all sorts of short cuts to make the PDF's file size smaller. The end result is text blocks being broken up into lots of separate objects and clipping masks being applied to nearly everything. It's kind of a pain to grab a logo or other graphics item out of a PDF that doesn't have Illustrator editing capability enabled. Illustrator and InDesign can also create layered PDFs. You can even import a layered Photoshop image into the design and have vector-based objects mixed in between the Photoshop-based objects. It's really pretty flexible. One thing I haven't figured out with PDF is that damned Live Cycle designer thing where you create interactive forms end users can fill out just using Adobe Reader. Kind of a pain in the ass really.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-06-2010 02:08 PM                     ¿  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-06-2010 03:02 PM                     Yeah, but Bobby, one reason I use PDFs to to make the document much less editable...hence my like for it. If I wanted the document to be edited otherwise worked on...I'd be more inclined to leave everything more native. That is, send a WORD document rather than a PDF. Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-06-2010 06:23 PM                     The nice thing with PDF is the format gives you the option to leave it editable or not. With my particular use, PDF is very handy because few customers will have the Adobe Design Premium or Production Studio creative suites. An .AI or .INDD file won't be of much use to them. PDF gives them a way to see the native file without them spending upwards of $2000 on a graphics suite. Even in the case of some people having one of the Adobe suites, they'll still be able to import the PDF artwork to some extent without having the same fonts installed on their computer systems. The flatten transparency feature in Adobe Illustrator is pretty useful in that regard. One criticism I have against PDF is the format is not secure enough. If you password protect the document from being imported into a graphics application the password can still be broken by after-market PDF creators. The only sure-fire method of making the PDF secure is to password protect it at the file>open command. But then that would make the PDF useless in terms of posting on the Internet. If I need to guard artwork from theft if I don't trust a certain customer I'll just rasterize any valuable vector imagery and put identifiable marks through it.  |  IP: Logged

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