Large graphic novel - PDF export issues

[cord]

Hi, everyone.
I've read through many PDF export threads here, but I need some help with my specific situation.
Bear with me as I walk through it. There are many variables and I'm pretty new to this kind of work, so there are probably many areas that could be improved.

In short, my issues are:

• enormous file size - 500MB-1GB.
• exports only look good at 300dpi. 72dpi exports are almost illegible. 
• color space mismatch

I'm laying out a large graphic novel, 175 pages.
Pages from one artist are placed in my file as PSDs, not flattened - 12-40MB each, RGB, sRGB IEC61966-2.1
The second artist submitted his pages as Tiffs - 50-100MB each, RGB, sRGB IEC61966-2.1
The printer is PrintNinja, and prefers color profile CMYK Japan Color 2001 Coated. They also say they'll only accept files from Adobe programs. 🤫
My file is set up in CMYK Japan Color 2001 Coated.

I need to export one print-ready PDF at 300dpi, CMYK Japan Color 2001 Coated
one share-able PDF at 72dpi(?), RGB
and one PDF for Kindle at 72dpi(?), RGB
These last two might be the same file, not sure.

Print file questions:
Not sure whether to export using for print, press-ready, or X-1a. I want to use whatever produces the best results.
Is there a setting that converts the black RGB to rich black?
Using any of them at 300 dpi, color space: as document, profile: use document profile, produces a file that looks good, but is really big. Usually around 1GB. This may be due simply to the page count, or the size of the placed pages. I've considered flattening the PSDs to see if that reduces it a bit.

Digital PDF:
This may be by biggest problem. It makes it almost impossible to share WIPs with the other members of the team for review.
Any attempt at exporting at 72dpi for the digital version creates something unreadable. (see attached).
I've tried three methods:
  export with preset digital - small size
  export with preset X-1a, dpi set to 72
  export with preset digital - high quality, then compress the 400MB file in Acrobat, which produces whacky color problems and missing layers.

 

Thanks for your time in reading all of this.
I'm looking forward to your thoughts on any of these points and questions.
I'd be happy to learn that I'm going about this stupidly and there's an easy solution.

Cord.

[thomaso]

Hi @cord, Welcome to the Affinity Forums!

No, you are obviously not "going about this stupidly" – but also there is no "easy solution" to the total of your bunch of questions. Unfortunately the answers are rather complex because of multiple known or unknown variables and/or the number of possible combinations of settings.

Your questions have been asked, discussed and answered in this forum various times before, so it may be useful to do a search for each question, separated by topic, e.g.

• large exported file size
• low exported image quality, resolution
• wrong exported colours, profiles

If you can’t find an answer that you can implement, you could create a new thread but please with only one topic per thread. Even if the entire project feels like a single topic to you, it is not in the forum in terms of problem descriptions and solutions.

To give the forum an idea of the meaning of your mentioned file sizes and image quality it is required to know:

1. the document dimensions.
2. the total number of pages. -> "175 pages"
3. the average area of raster/pixel content per page.
4. the average effective ('placed') resolution of raster content.
5. the used image compression / quality setting for export.
6. the file type(s) + colour space(s) of the placed resources (e.g. JPG, PNG, TIF, PDF, Affinity, etc).
7. the storage location for linked resources: local or external volume (hard drive, network, cloud etc.).

For the investigation of your specific problems it may also help if you would create + upload to the forum a sample Affinity document with same dimensions, same colour profile and 2-3 spreads with an average sample content of the book. If you upload the .afpub only the placed resources need to be embedded / if you choose Save as Package you should ZIP the result before upload.

If you show screenshots of your layouts or export results it is useful to include the interface of the viewing app, in Affinity apps at least the Context Toolbar + the Tools + the Layers Panel with a relevant layer selected and unfolded if it contains child layer(s).

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[henryanthony]

It appears that all your pages are full page images with no type created using fonts. 175 8.5" x 11" (you did not specify a size) CMYK pages at 300 DPI comes to 5.6 GB by my calculations and this does not include any bleed. What don't you understand? The RGB file being 3 channels will come down in size a bit from the CMYK but will still be big. Not sure how much smaller a Zip file would be. I think your best best bet is to work with the printer on how to deal with such a large amount of data. RGB has no rich black, although I may be wrong about that. Plus, all your images must be specifically created using rich black. There is no "rich black button" that I am aware of.

@cord It seems you are between a rock and a hard place. You simply have a very large file to deal with. Maybe you can break it down into manageable chunks?

Anyone, please, correct me if I am wrong on any of this. I have not worked on high res commercial print projects for quite a long time.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.