AP reading PSD PDF/X‑1a file blurry

[ronald618]

So, getting back to the question at hand: a PDF is a standardized format, so why shouldn't AP read it correctly?

And upon opening, AP asks for the dpi which I set at 300 (as is the document).

So what could the problem be?

[MEB]

Hi @ronald618,
I've updated my previous reply. Seems Photoshop is loading embedded PSD data (the PDF was generated with Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities enabled) rather than the image included in the PDF whereas Affinity is loading the 150 dpi image from the PDF and upscaling/resampling it if you pick 300 as the resolution on import - I'm still checking the file/checking this. Anyway I'm logging it with the dev team to see if we can do better/check what's else may be going on. If you do have access to the original PSD maybe it's better to use it directly or export a flattened version as a TIFF and use it instead. Affinity is not able to access the original embedded Photoshop data in the PDF file as Photoshop does.

[ronald618]

Ok, thank you for your reply.

I'm looking forward to having an answer to the problem.

 

[ronald618]

One other thing most printing houses request a PDF/X‑1a 2001 file.

AP does not offer that option. Is there a reason for that?

[Fixx]

10 hours ago, MEB said:

Seems Photoshop is loading embedded PSD data

Yes, for some reason there are both resolutions available in PDF file. Mind you, if you access the image with Acrobat and select "Edit" you get 150 dpi version in PS.

[Hangman]

15 hours ago, ronald618 said:

One other thing most printing houses request a PDF/X‑1a 2001 file.

PDF/X-1a is an outdated file format that has been superseded by PDF/X-4 so any printing company that has entered the 21st Century should really be using it since it offers far more flexibility than both flavours of PDF/X-1a. Virtually all RIPs and DFEs sold over the last ten years support live transparency, color management and PDF/X-4, so insisting on PDF/X-1a is really just laziness.

 

 

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

PDF/X-1a is an outdated file format that has been superseded by PDF/X-4 so any printing company that has entered the 21st Century should really be using it since it offers far more flexibility than both flavours of PDF/X-1a. Virtually all RIPs and DFEs sold over the last ten years support live transparency, color management and PDF/X-4, so insisting on PDF/X-1a is really just laziness.

You may well be right, but Amazon KDP "prefer" PDF/X-1a and I'm not going to tell them that they are lazy and should enter the 21st Century!  😁

[Wosven]

7 hours ago, Hangman said:

PDF/X-1a is an outdated file format

For security and avoiding error when using PDF from different sources, send by clients who doesn't always know what they are doing, the safest way is to use this "outdated" file format, as you call it.

And I suspect we and other will keep on using it to avoid problems, meaning reprinting or reimbursing magazines' ads. If the specs we ask for are respected, it's smooth and an easy worflow, and if there's a problem it'll probably come from a file not compliant. So the responsibility is not the publisher one, but the creator of the PDF's one.

Also, automated workflow using Pitstop will reject non compliant files, and there won't be extra work. Same when using technology like SWYP.

The printing world evolve a lot, and a lot of small printers disappeared... so taking the safest route like asking for reliable PDF specs depending of the paper and printer is reasonable. 

From talking with printers we worked with long ago, they had to work on the files and correct them to get the best results — at the time, I suspect it was usual, people exporting to PDF with minimal knowledge relying on default settings, mainly respecting 300 PPI and CMYK images and files...

Asking to respect some specs and guiding to get those correct seems reasonable. The same way that, when I need to create a book or magazine, I ask my technician (fabriquant) the settings I need to use. Depending of paper, cover specificities, printer machine, etc. Those informations can also be given by the printer.

[Hangman]

24 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

You may well be right, but Amazon KDP "prefer" PDF/X-1a and I'm not going to tell them that they are lazy and should enter the 21st Centaury!  😁

Perhaps somebody should... 😳

[ronald618]

Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of lecturing printers as to which format they should accept.  PDF/X-1a is still widely requested. 

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, ronald618 said:

Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of lecturing printers as to which format they should accept.  PDF/X-1a is still widely requested.

Absolutely and I'm not suggesting you would, there's nothing wrong with PDF/X-1a either but what do you do when your print job contains transparency or OpenType fonts for example and PDF/X-1a doesn't cut it?

PDF/X-1a is absolutely fine for lots of jobs, it just seems crazy (well to me at least) that in 2021 so many printers still rely on a 20 year old standard when a much improved and more flexible standard exists, why would you not adopt that as a printer?

When you look at other industries, say, video production for example, new and better codecs have been developed over the last 20 years and now ProRes is one of the most popular and widely used video codecs in professional post-production because it provides many benefits over older standards and codecs so people have adopted it.

Anyway, this is purely my personal opinion and at the end of the day you use the tools most appropriate for the job I guess and if that is PDF/X-1a then that's fine too.

[ronald618]

"Absolutely and I'm not suggesting you would, there's nothing wrong with PDF/X-1a either but what do you do when your print job contains transparency or OpenType fonts for example and PDF/X-1a doesn't cut it?"

It is not up for me to decide.

If a printer wants the PDF/X-1a formant, you comply. You comply because you're trying to make a living.

Affinity should offer the PDF/X-1a as does the world's photo editing standard: Photoshop.

[Hangman]

42 minutes ago, ronald618 said:

Affinity should offer the PDF/X-1a as does the world's photo editing standard: Photoshop.

It effectively does, it provides PDF/X-1a:2003.

• PDF/X-1a:2001 – has to be a PDF 1.3 file.
• PDF/X-1a:2003 – has to be a PDF 1.4 file but it should not contain any transparency and JBIG2 compression should not be used to compress images.

Both PDF/X-1a:2001 and PDF/X-1a:2003 share all of the restrictions that apply to PDF/X-1a. The 2003 version simply came along because some newer software applications no longer supported the older PDF 1.3 file format.

[lacerto]

There is nothing "outdated" about PDF/X-1a, but to be properly created, it requires much more from the creating app. So what is a lazy choice is going for PDF/X-4, as that is basically something that is created to facilitate creation of well behaving print exports without requiring too much from the user (e.g. any understanding of color management), or the app that creates the PDF.

PDF/X-1a presets simply just produce device-CMYK exports that have transparencies flattened and do not leave anything critical to be resolved for the RIP software. Not all software can flatten transparencies without rasterizing them, or produce flawless PDF/X-1a output from source files that use e.g. PDF/X-4, and Affinity apps definitely cannot. 

When using later standards that allow unflattened transparencies, RGB color space, and other late-bound resolving, I would make sure that digital proofs of the ripped output are available. If they are not, I rather always create a device-CMYK output (whether PDF-X based or not), to see everything essential getting resolved already on my end.

I have happily used OpenType fonts for years, producing with PDF versions 1.3 and 1.4 (along with later versions) without knowing that these fonts are not "supported" in these early standards. Perhaps there is some drawback so I would be grateful to be educated...

Anyway, PDF/X-1a:2001 not supported is not a choice by Serif but by PDFlib, which only supports PDF/X-1a:2003. They are not technically far apart so there is really no good reason to reject the latter when requiring the former. There are third-party low-cost apps (at least on Windows platform) that can do PDF/X-1a:2001 conversions but I have not tested them extensively. Proper prepress software like Adobe Acrobat Pro and callas software PDFtoolbox can do this, too.

But to get back to the topic, the Photoshop (CS6) created PDF file that was posted in this thread, is not PDF/X-1a compliant (not PDF/X-1a:2001 or PDF/X-1a:2003) so when Affinity apps fail to open and interpret it properly, I am not astonished. Illustrator CS6 cannot, either. So what Photoshop does is that it opens the embedded RGB-based original image again while no other apps can.

UPDATE: Related to KDP workflows, they basically recommend using sRGB or device-CMYK, so they are not interested in color profiles and discard them on the outset. This is wise but can give some gray hair when using powerful software like Affinity apps without its users having proper understanding of print production, as it is easy to produce an "advanced" PDF that loses its intended colors along the process.

[Old Bruce]

I have to ask: What is the actual difference between PDF/X 1a 2001 versus the PDF/X 1a 2003 version that makes the latter useless for press work? I mean what is it about the 2003 version that printshops cannot accept it? Is it a flag in their imposing software which can't be changed? Will plates not be burned by the 2003 version because of.....?

[Wosven]

14 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

versus the PDF/X 1a 2003 version that makes the latter useless for press work?

That's not that it's useless, that's just that all the flow (Pitstop and other checking apps) is set to only accept PDF/X-1a:2001.

Depending of other parameters not causing problems, for example, we've set Pitstop to convert PDF/X-1a:2003 to PDF/X-1a:2001. But mainly, when we reject a file and ask for modifications, it's because other parameters are wrong and a conversion can cause errors.

[Old Bruce]

If 2003 is getting rejected then it is useless. What I am curious about is knowing exactly what it is about the 2003 version  of the PDF/X 1a that is so bad for the process that it must be rejected? The only thing I have been able to find is a quote about using 2001 because it will be less confusing for all involved, one less thing for people to worry about. That quote was made in 2005.

I will happily admit that a hell of a lot of this stuff is way above my head. And I should point out that I am simply curious about it, so don't waste too much or any time.

[lacerto]

11 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

If 2003 is getting rejected then it is useless. What I am curious about is knowing exactly what it is about the 2003 version  of the PDF/X 1a that is so bad for the process that it must be rejected?

The prefilight routines might be so strict to simply just check the PDF version number, so if it is anything bigger than 1.3, it gets rejected.

Converting PDF 1.4 (e.g. PDF/X1-a:2003) to PDF 1.3 (e.g. PDF/X-1a:2001) is not just a trivial task of changing the version number (it possibly could, if the preflight routine is silly enough). But when a proper conversion is done, it must always be done so that the source and destination color profiles are involved so that any ICC based translations are calculated and color values are flattened, including transparencies. When converting from something like PDF/X-1a:2003 to PDF/X-1a:2001 it should not be much anything than changing meta data, but if it is done properly, I'd image it is done the same way as translating from any color space to the destination color space.

When PDF/X-1a compliancy test is run with Adobe Acrobat Pro (2020 included), it does not make a difference between the 2001 and 2003 versions, so any Affinity app created PDF/X-1a:2003 based exports are accepted with all green:

It is unfortunate that the older PDF/X-1a:2001 standard is not directly supported in Affinity apps (as it still is in latest CC versions of Adobe apps, not just because of legacy benevolence but because they ARE standards). As a standard procedure, I would always try if a service that gives PDF/X-1a:2001 specs would accept PDF/X-1a:2003, anyway, and if not, check if there is another way to deliver the file as this version discrepancy should really make no difference (as regards print production). If there is no other way, I'd use a third-party converter.

[Wosven]

Strangely, there's also people using ID that could from the start have the right parameters and export the PDF with the right specs (like PDF/X-1a:2001), but they'd rather use a third-party converter (photograver company they'll pay for the service, even if they don't produce the correct files...).