Now let’s take a look at how to use our PDF preset. Your new Adobe PDF Preset will be added to the list of Presets in the Adobe PDF Preset dialog.įinally, click Done to complete the PDF preset creation process. Give your custom preset a name in the Preset field at the top of the dialog (we named ours My Preset US Web Coated). Photo-shop will also simplify the image by flattening it-applying and removing layers-and deleting any alpha channels present.) ( Note: If you’re working with an RGB image in Photoshop and you save it as a PDF using an Adobe PDF Preset with a CMYK Destination Profile, Photoshop will convert the RGB image to CMYK using the designated Destination Profile. Under the PDF/X area, click on the Output Intent Profile Name pop-up menu and select the output profile you want to be used to con-vert the image to CMYK-in our example, it’s U.S. Under the Color area, the Destination pop-up menu will display the current Working CMYK color profile that you have selected in the Working Spaces section of the Color Set-tings dialog (Edit>Color Settings). Now, click on Output on the left-hand side of the dialog. (Note: This option will be grayed out unless you have selected a Compatibility for either Ac-robat 6 or 7, which you can’t chose if you’ve selected one of the PDF/X standards.) Don’t click OK yet. If you’re working with 16 bit/channel images, leave the Convert 16 Bit/Channel Image to 8 Bits/Channel checkbox on, as most RIPs won’t handle 16-bit data. Again, I prefer not to have the PDF creation process apply any image adjustments, such as applying lossy compression to my images. Now in the Compression pop-down menu, select None. The PDF/X default, which is to downsample any image with a resolution greater than 450 pixels/inch, may be a wise choice for files where you might be unsure of the incoming resolutions however, I carefully control the resolution of my images and don’t want the PDF creation process to perform any downsampling, as it can soften them noticeably. Then in the Options area, click on the downsampling pop-up menu, and select Do Not Downsample. STEP TWO: Click on Compression in the list on the left-hand side of the Edit PDF Preset dialog. While this setting typically doesn’t have an impact one way or the other in prepress, there have been a few reported RIP conflicts, so I suggest you get in the habit of turning off this selection. (Note: The Compatibility pop-up menu on the right side of the dialog is automatically disabled and assigned a setting of PDF 1.3, the required compatibility for PDF/X.)Ĭlick off the Optimize for Fast Web Preview checkbox because when it’s on, this setting activates page serving, which allows a PDF document to be served up one page at a time across the Internet.
Here’s a customized set of adjustments that I make to the standard PDF/X settings when pre-paring PDFs for prepress.Ĭlick the New button in the Adobe PDF Preset dialog and in the Edit PDF Preset dialog that appears, click on the Standard pop-up menu and select PDF/X-1a:2003. You can also customize any of the included presets to create a new preset. To view a more detailed summary of the specific settings, scroll down the Preset Settings Summary. ( Note: The PDF/X settings are prepress-oriented Adobe PDF Pre-sets.)Ĭlick on one of the presets (we chose High Quality Print in our exam-ple) and in the Preset Description, you can read a general description of the preset. Also, any custom Adobe PDF presets you’ve already added to the Adobe PDF Settings folder will be visible in this list of Presets, such as “Taz US Sheetfed Coated” shown at the bottom of our example.
When the Adobe PDF Presets dialog appears, you’ll see a series of PDF presets including High Quality Print, PDF/X-1a:2001, PDF/X-3a:2002, Press Quality, and Smallest File Size. Let’s start by taking a closer look at the Adobe PDF Presets dialog. Photoshop CS2 contains a variety of PDF presets that can be used to create specific types of PDFs. In addition, PSD and TIFF images with layers and channels can be saved in an editable PDF format, providing much more flexibility for using PDFs in Photoshop. Or, if you choose, you can even create your own PDF presets from scratch.
Photoshop CS2 also contains a variety of PDF creation presets that you can use as-is or edit to suit your needs. With each release of the Creative Suite, PDF becomes more fully integrated into Photoshop. The new Photoshop CS2 boasts new capabilities for creating, controlling, and editing PDFs.