dont even read this if photoshop, DPI, PDF mean nothing to you!

[laurabolyard]

BORING!!! sorry for the emergency! Need help!! I was asked to do the layout for the new church dirsectory because they liked my creative eye (I was a floral designer). The two are obviously not related, they OBVIOUSLY didnt know who else to ask. VERY long story short, I thought I was being asked to decide on rounded vs squared corners on family photos, and adding text under their pics. NOII was supposed to do all of the extra curiccular activities-type pages, for which there were very few photos (most of bad quality) for me to choose from to use. I ve spent the last few weeks (literally) trying to enhance bad photos, take new photos, create layouts that are conservative and creative. Ive dealt with poeple who have all come out of the woodwork "why not a pic of this/that, why did you use this one, that looks a little dark, those people havent been here in two years................." It has been laid upon my shoulders, from first thinking I would do some typing, to being photographer (IM NOT) and design layer (IM NOT) and the go-to person about photos that I didnt choose, but were chosen for me> Its nuts. Ok, now that Ive vented, the poblem, (yes, the problem is yet to come). I DID ALL OF THIS, with NO specs of any kind. I got all of the pages designed, mind you, we are a few weeks behide schedule for all of thhese reasons and more. I was ready to send everything to the printer, and thought, "let me just make sure , and email a page, that all of this work I have done is going to fly, before I send everything off."
NO GOOD
I just don't know enough about digital printing. I didnt know to preset pages to at least 300 DPI, more for text. Let alone the fact that there are specific magins/sizes they need everything to be before its sent. I HAVE TO REDO EVERYTHING!!!! I dont have time to learn photoshop (BTW, they wanted everything in PDF, which I had to quickly learn to do in photoshop, but a mute point since I have to redo for quality.) I must continue to use microsoft picture it because I am familiar and can do it more quickly. I just didnt know that I could preset DPI and margins before I began a page, actually its imperitive!
Sorry. so, for the question...
I was told that I need 600 DPI for text, and at least 300 DPI for the photos. Am I going to have a problem with "fair" photos setting everything for 600 DPI? I know this was a long way to go for what may be a stupid question. Please give me your knowledge!!!

[poppin_fresh]

Laura,
I may be able to help you....most of my life has been in the printing/graphics world.

I can safely say that most printers (digital or otherwise) will cringe if you design your piece in any Microsoft product. Not that they have any beef with Microsoft, but rather, its just doesn't work well with their equipment. I may have a little time tomorrow night to rework your stuff in a format they CAN use, PM me and I will tell you what I need to get it done.

Dont feel bad about not knowing this stuff, I traveled this road everyday...many times with people who charged their clients A LOT of $$ considering they didn't know what THEY were doing either.

Jon

[laurabolyard]

I am sooo crying, I wanted to do a good job even though I didnt have any idea what i was getting myself into when I accepted. I JUST WILL NOT give up now!!

[poppin_fresh]

At least you are doing it out of the kindness of your heart because you want to help out. Like I said, I saw many people that claimed to know what they were doing, while charging people, as they learned like you!

[laurabolyard]

WAAAHHHHHHH I wont be defeated... I dont care how many more days it takes, I WILL OVERCOME!!! I just may not agree to do it next time, knowing what it entails!! I TOTALLY THOUGHT I WOULD BE TYPING AND SQUARING CORNERS!!!!!!! II Will overcome

[laurabolyard]

could this be any further away from floral design (of which I AM the committee)!

[PhotoJohn]

isnt working in a church an amazing job? My wife is the daughter of a pastor and I am the son of a deacon. I must say people in church do a better job of driving people away than the devil ever could (not asking for a theological debate FYI). What was it the Gandi said ... something like "I would be a christian if chrristians were like christ"...

anyway

taking a 100dpi image and bumping it up to 300dpi will downgrade the image usually/always. This is because the computer is trying to add dots that dont exist, thus its guessing. If the images are not of great quality to start with it will be greatly amplified by bumping up dpi. Working with poor photos is an amazing pain! My dad tried to put together a picture book directory in our old church, it didnt go well. I commend you for all your work however

[laurabolyard]

Well. I have about 10 pages to redo. If the photos will be downgraded in 600 DPI, and the text will look terrible in 300 DPI, how does one compensate for this?

[PhotoJohn]

interesting...i have no idea...i would just try it all at 600 and print 1 page

[laurabolyard]

[quote= I must say people in church do a better job of driving people away than the devil ever could (not asking for a theological debate FYI). What was it the Gandi said ... something like "I would be a christian if chrristians were like christ"...

[/QUOTE]

Yeah! Ive kindo taken on a lot this year, but this project has me so down. I thought I was finished! I don't want to waste spring break being depressed (teacher), but its not looking good for me! I guess I will try a page in 300, and in 600. the problem is, like the print man said and poppinfresh, what looks ok printed from home may look really bad with pro equipment!

[poppin_fresh]

Pictures are always more forgiving then text. 300dpi pics can look just fine if they aren't blown way up, but 300 dpi text almost always looks crappy. The problem is that keeping the resolution high for the text creates very large files which slow everything down.

Professional design applications get around this problem keeping the type and photos as separate components, not one homogenated picture.

[veriann]

I love it you two kill me! , PhotoJohn & poppinfresh are the first cabs of the ranks with the subject heading... Well i see the funny side in the names tieing in with the genre anyways.

[laurabolyard]

OK, MY PLAN

Call MICROSOFT

find out about the font (seperate entity) and the page setting (300 dpi). If this CAN be the case, I just start over

otherwise, its gonna have to be plan B- I really dont havetime to learn all of the nuances of photoshop, if I HAVE to use it, it is gonna be a MUCH simpler design

[CarmieJo]

Gosh Laura,

I am learning Photoshop but don't know enough to help. But, as a very active member in our church, I can totally emphasize with this being overwhelming.

[pvtdonut]

well...i know photoshop. and i know illustrator pretty well, since i did take a viscom class in school for 3 years.

photoshop is good, mainly for image editing. illustrator is good for text and page layouts... and it woks with vector images instead of raster. if you dont know what that is, if you look at a raster image at 300x zoom, there will be no pixles visible.. so if you type, say, the letter "G" and zoom in on a curved part, it will be a perfectly smooth curve no matter the size of the text.. if you did it in photoshop, it would look choppy and pixely.


anyway, do all of your photo editing in photoshop, and import it into illustrator and THEN add the text and make the page layout.

as for your DPI, or PPI, (pixels per inch) the higher quality the photo, the more ppi it will be. if you were wonderig how to change it, you can go into image>image size and the last box will be your resolution in PPI. if you need it in 300 ppi, you can change the imahe to that size, save it as a .gif, since it will maintain its quality. and then import it into illustrator, where you can then add all of your txt. from there, design your page layouts and print.


i hope that made sense to you. lol i tried to word it as best as i could.

HTH!

[pvtdonut]

oh, and for making it into a pdf from illustrator, its the same as photoshop. since both programs are made by adobe, all of the menus are pretty much the same.

[CarmieJo]

Good info donut.

[pvtdonut]

no prob!

i used to mess around with photoshop a lot a while back.. i really want to start getting back into it, now that i have time.