A question about pdf

[davidh]

Some DTP studios require for printing images in pdf format.
Does it matter which converter is used for the conversion from e.g. tif to pdf? Or are various converters just a question of more or less friendly user interface?
I, for example, use Foxit Reader.

[jsachs]

There are a lot of different ways to represent an image within a PDF file -- some involve compression and possible loss of data. There is also the issue of the color profile. I have no specific information about different converters, but some caution is warranted.

From Wikipedia:

Raster images in PDF (called Image XObjects) are represented by dictionaries with an associated stream. The dictionary describes properties of the image, and the stream contains the image data. (Less commonly, a raster image may be embedded directly in a page description as an inline image.) Images are typically filtered for compression purposes. Image filters supported in PDF include the following general purpose filters:

ASCII85Decode, a filter used to put the stream into 7-bit ASCII,
ASCIIHexDecode, similar to ASCII85Decode but less compact,
FlateDecode, a commonly used filter based on the deflate algorithm defined in RFC 1951 (deflate is also used in the gzip, PNG, and zip file formats among others); introduced in PDF 1.2; it can use one of two groups of predictor functions for more compact zlib/deflate compression: Predictor 2 from the TIFF 6.0 specification and predictors (filters) from the PNG specification (RFC 2083),
LZWDecode, a filter based on LZW Compression; it can use one of two groups of predictor functions for more compact LZW compression: Predictor 2 from the TIFF 6.0 specification and predictors (filters) from the PNG specification,
RunLengthDecode, a simple compression method for streams with repetitive data using the run-length encoding algorithm and the image-specific filters,
DCTDecode, a lossy filter based on the JPEG standard,
CCITTFaxDecode, a lossless bi-level (black/white) filter based on the Group 3 or Group 4 CCITT (ITU-T) fax compression standard defined in ITU-T T.4 and T.6,
JBIG2Decode, a lossy or lossless bi-level (black/white) filter based on the JBIG2 standard, introduced in PDF 1.4, and
JPXDecode, a lossy or lossless filter based on the JPEG 2000 standard, introduced in PDF 1.5.
Normally all image content in a PDF is embedded in the file. But PDF allows image data to be stored in external files by the use of external streams or Alternate Images. Standardized subsets of PDF, including PDF/A and PDF/X, prohibit these features.

[Charles2]

Is the destination an offset printer? The studio should tell you exactly what it wants (that is, what portion of their work that they insist you do). For example, they might demand CMYK, and there are many ways to convert any RGB color space to CMYK.

[davidh]

Jonathan and Charles, thanks both.
The simplest way seems to have it printed and then find out how far it is from what comes out from my Epson Stylus Photo. It might come out even better. :)

[jsachs]

I don't know if you have this on your computer, but I have a printer driver called Adobe PDF. From PWP 8, you can print your image via this pseudo-printer and it will generate a PDF file. Under printer properties Adobe PDF has a number of quality and paper size options.

[davidh]

I currently use Foxit Reader in my PC. Its driver offers one important setting regarding quality. The default is ON.
I will try the Adobe PDF printer driver to see if it is more sophisticated.

[jsachs]

Here is a dialog box for Adobe PDF:

ss.jpg (74.25 KiB) Viewed 5531 times

Not sure where I got it, but I think it came with Acrobat.

[Winfried]

If a printing studio requires a pdf, they should be more specific.
There a many flavours of pdfs. A pdf created by normal programs like Microsoft Word or Open Office / Libre Office is normally not good enough.
A printing studio I was in contact with last year, said that they want a PDF-X4, images in the cmyk-system and with the icc-profil ISOcoated V2.
They also made special requirements for black (Cyan 50%, Magenta 50%, Yellow 50% und Black) 100%),

Well, a cmyk-workflow is quite different from a normal photographers rgb-workflow and beyond my scope. So I decided to do all the printing by myself. To my opinion it is useless to convert a rgb-image to a "smaller" cmyk colorspace that must be converted by some kind of RIP-Software to a 10 color model (in my case an Epson Pro 4900). In my simple rgb-workflow the driver for the printer does the conversion to the 10 cmyk colors of the printer.

Winfried

[davidh]

As my attempt to get Adobe PDF driver by installing Adobe Acrobat was not successfull, I made some searching in forums and learned that the Adobe PDF driver had never been part of free Adobe SW.

Since I have no intention to obtain any Adobe editor to get their driver, I will try and see what comes out of it with the use of the simple Foxit reader PDF driver.
To be honest, I do not much like to fiddle with too many settings in anything, especially if I hardly see any real effect with naked eyes.

Winfried, I argee with you that the best is to print your images yourself. This time, however, I want to print some A2 and possibly A1 images, which are too large for my Epson R2880.

[jsachs]

I think the Adobe PDF driver comes with Acrobat Professional which you have to pay for. I have the last version before they made it a subscription which I really don't like since it's expensive and I use it rarely. There may also be some online services that you upload an image to and then download the PDF, such as https://online2pdf.com/convert-tiff-to-pdf