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jesse · 01-26-2009, 05:13 PM

We've been testing ProductionHouse 7.2 with the altona test suite and getting less than stellar results. Essentially, the test is telling us it's non compliant with the PDF/X spec.

http://www.altonatestsuite.de/en/index.php

It seems just about any RIP that uses CPSI or APPE2 can handle it, but others choke on these files.

Thoughts?

SWCL · 01-27-2009, 01:29 AM

Its been well documented that Onyx has major difficulties when it comes to PDF's. They obviously didn't fix it in 7.2.. but afaik they keep saying it'll be fixed in v.7.3?? We'll just have to see, don't hold out too much hope though

This may seem a stupid question having tried to give you an answer to yours... but can I ask what the advantage of using PDF/X is, over regular PDF?

Not something we've had to deal with as yet... if we get troubles with a regular PDF not playing ball, we just raterize it in Photoshop & save it as a tiff. Not ideal for keeping work flowing or a colour management point of view.. but gets us out the sticky stuff

jesse · (This post was last modified: 01-27-2009 06:11 AM by CMyKolors.)

We've had good results converting a PDF to .ps in acrobat, then running that .ps thru distiller. If we have a problem PDF, that usually seems to keep the color close to what was expected, and fix issues with transparency (distiller is pretty much a postscript RIP itself)

As far as the advantage of PDF/X, I'm not sold on it. My department wants to verify compliance, but I'm not sure they understand the intent of PDF/X.

If you create a PDF/X, you're basically creating a PDF that adheres to strict standards, and color manages itself, so to speak. It has an imbedded output intent that a RIP should map all the RGB and CMYK data to, then map that output intent to your media gamut, as opposed to the RIP doing it's usual input > LAB > CMYK. Make sense?

It's a good way to go if you want to know how your file will look if you send it to an outside vendor, but internally, it's not the optimal format. If you're receiving files from clients, you'll want to be compliant in the event they send you a PDF/X document. We do all our work internally, so it's not necessary.

Was that clear? I apologize if I rambled.

SWCL · 01-27-2009, 08:29 AM

Perfectly clear

Thank you very much.

Chris.

Fingers · 01-28-2009, 10:34 AM

Jesse,

If I've understood you correctly the accurate way of processing a pdf/x compliant file would be to turn the RIP's input profiles off as the pdf/x has effectively dealt with input profiles for me. Is that right? It seems to be accurate in practice, but I am very uncomfortable in turning off the colour management where I otherwise carefully assign input profiles etc...

Craig

jesse · 01-29-2009, 12:13 PM

When the RIP sees the PDF is PDF/X, all those settings should be bypassed and replaced with those defined in the PDF. When you receive a PDF/X, it's still just a .pdf at a glance.

And, in turning off all the input profiles, it still doesn't render correctly. It seems the rendering intents and output intent are still ignored by the RIP.

pscala · 05-19-2009, 01:13 PM

If you go to the Adobe web site and do a search on their knowledge base on PDF you will get some excellent info on all the in's and out of the various version of the PDF X files.
It is not as simple as it sounds, but once you read thru this stuff it gets much better.
Phil

jens · 05-20-2009, 02:24 AM

what problems do you have jesse ?
Is it a problem with color or a problem with transparancy in the pdf document ?
The only way i did find out to get rid of the transparancy issue is to set all rendering intents the same. Or make a pdf document witch is flattend.
ther is only one version of pdf that embed the icc profiles or the color gamma but i cant remember with version.

try to run this test in onyx :

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

jup :o:|

darkcloud · 06-24-2009, 08:00 PM

The main problems we seem to get with pdf's is when contain a gradient of some kind. That's really the only problem we have had with them in 7.3. I actually found a fairly simple way around that problem. If you open a pdf giving trouble in acrobat, you can then print it to the Production House virtual printer that installs in the Windows printers. It takes a little tweaking to set acrobat to print right and set the right page size in the advanced printer options, but after you get it set, all you gotta do is hit print in acrobat, and it sends them to the rip in perfect condition. Like to know if anyone else has tried this and had success.