Export qualité pdf

[patrick87]

Hello
I have a problem when exporting a pdf. Some parts that are net under publisher are bad qualities when exporting. Just on part of the image processed with 3D effect. All the oprtions of the export are however to the maximum and I followed the help on line. Do you have an idea. ?

 

Export PDF 

 

if I remove these options

The result is better

export pdf

 

all 3D and bevel / stamping options are bad for export

Thanks for your help

Edited July 5, 2019 by patrick87

[thadeusz]

I could imagine two places, where you could change the resolution. One is in document setup. There is a resolution to be chosen (normally 300dpi) and then there is export settings - more (button at the bottom) - there is a resolution to be chosen as well. Maybe for testing you crank up these to see if it's getting better. I'd say for printing it should be around 400dpi in original size to look perfect, even it looks not perfect, when you zoom close. There are several threads in Designer forum discussing rasterization of layer effects/rasterization of outlines. It's not perfectly handled, but as long as a print shop is taking and using your higher resolution files, there shouldn't be a problem.

[Peter Werner]

These effects should still export as raster images clipped inside of the corresponding paths and not raster images only, so there is clearly something wrong here beyond just the resolution of the effects. Whether this is by design or a bug I cannot say.

[mac_heibu]

@Peter Werner: Think, this is actually by design, because the PDF library, which is licensed for „Publisher“ doesn’t support this kind of clipping.

[patrick87]

it's really strange. All the options have been tested without success. thank you to all of you  

[thadeusz]

As I wrote before, it shouldn't be a problem, as long as you can use higher resolution with your print shop. I just tried with Publisher to replicate your problem and it is all rasterized, but with higher resolution it is no problem to have the same print quality as with vectors. Its just making bigger PDFs. But of course - vectors would be better.
Find attached two versions of the same export - one with 300dpi, one with 1200dpi. It's easy to see an improvement.

export300dpi.pdf

export1200dpi.pdf

[Peter Werner]

10 hours ago, mac_heibu said:

@Peter Werner: Think, this is actually by design, because the PDF library, which is licensed for „Publisher“ doesn’t support this kind of clipping.

I cannot possibly imagine that the Serif team would choose a PDF library that cannot clip a pre-rendered raster image into a path, that's pretty much as basic as it gets.

[mac_heibu]

@Peter Werner, if you remember: The first versions of InDesign weren‘t able to fill a path by clipping an image too. That was the reason of extensive flattening and merging actions. This kind of issues were successively improved during the upgrade processes.

Publisher is actually much less „intelligent“ in this respect. I personally don‘t expect more from an initial version of an app.

[Peter Werner]

Not 100% sure about early versions of InDesign, but I at least don't remember running into any issues in that respect. But you may well be correct since around InDesign 1.5 and shortly thereafter 2.0.X when I started using the software, printers here always still asked for native files and not PDF so back then it wouldn't have been something I would have to worry about.

That being said, if I create a shape in any of the Affinity apps, import an image and drag it inside to clip it, it exports to PDF as an image clipped inside a path (tested with the PDF/X-3 setting). The edges are sharp and not pixelated no matter how much I zoom in (tested in Apple Preview and by placing the PDF into an InDesign document, can't try Acrobat Pro right now because the updater corrupted my installation once again). Re-Importing the PDF into Affinity retains that path as a clipping mask for the raster image.

Ergo the Affinity backend as well as the PDF library it is using (apparently PDFlib + PDI) are perfectly capable of outputting bitmaps with clipping paths, they are just not doing so in the case of the effects in the original poster's case for whatever reason.

One possible explanation is that the partially transparent raster image on the left that is overlapping the lines somehow triggers rasterization of the objects below if any effects are applied, which to me looks like a bug.

[mac_heibu]

You are right. In certain situation this happens as you are saying, but not in all situations.

For example:

I filled the letter „S" (400 pt, Arial bold) with an image and exported a X-3 PDF from Publisher and InDesign. Here is the results at 900 % zoom (Don’t care about the colour differences):

 

[Peter Werner]

Works fine for me, I only had "Allow JPEG Compression" deactivated on the PDF/X-3 preset, otherwise my settings should be identical to yours. The screenshot shows the PDF re-imported into Affinity and as you can see it consists of a raster image with a clipping path.

I made the file by simply creating the S as an ArtText object and dragged the placed image inside in the layers panel. If you are seeing different results, I'd say it is definitely a bug and not a design limitation of the Affinity backend or the PDF library.

[mac_heibu]

Maybe you are correct again …

[patrick87]

Thank you for taking the time to look into this problem. If there is a bug, how to notify the developer team?

[thomaso]

On 7/10/2019 at 10:53 AM, patrick87 said:

If there is a bug, how to notify the developer team?

I have doubts there is a bug on export resolution of 3d and emboss effects.
As far I read you did not tell us what resolutions and what zoom factors you show in your screenshots above.

The effects 3D and Emboss export to me in a PDF/X-3 as expected. Try it with the attached PDF: even in 400% zoom the PDF still looks much less jaggy than your screenshot. (whereas 400% zoom on screen corresponds about to a resolution of 300 dpi in print (4x 72 dpi = 288 dpi)). It looks blurry (not jaggy) of cause because both effects create soft edges in purpose.

v408_2 effect resolution X-3.pdf
 

 

 

 

[thomaso]

On 7/8/2019 at 4:23 PM, mac_heibu said:

You are right. In certain situation this happens as you are saying, but not in all situations.

For example:

I filled the letter „S" (400 pt, Arial bold) with an image and exported a X-3 PDF from Publisher and InDesign. Here is the results at 900 % zoom (Don’t care about the colour differences):

@mac_heibu, your AfPub result looks different to my test. –> Same "S", 400 pt, Arial bold + image inside exported as PDF/X-3 plus with JPG-quality 10% only:

The S-edges aren't blurry, jaggy or influenced by jpg compression in 900% PDF view:

v408_2 letter S & image inside X-3 _jpg-10.pdf

 

[mac_heibu]

I didn‘t allow jpg compression at all. But I‘ll test again tomorrow (am not in front of my machine now). Perhaps it was my fault (as I already stated in my answer to Peter Werner).

[thomaso]

Oh, I thought jpg compression was the difference between yours and Werners test, because he wrote:  >> Works fine for me, I only had "Allow JPEG Compression" deactivated <<
So since Werner and me got the S shape as expected I don't see a need for you to test again, thanks.

I am rather interested how patrick87 came to the very bad result in the pdf screenshot in the 1st post. Possibly a linked but missing resource? Or a rasterized object before export + export in low resolution? ...