JRN 440 Adv. Online Journalism Raster file formats for print Wednesday, 2/8/12

Class Objectives Note 1: Virtual lab instructions on home page Note 2: Ex. 1-3 graded Lecture Raster File Formats for Print Introduce Neat Trick Assignment Homework P1 due Wednesday, 2/15, at 2:05 p.m. First neat trick is on Monday, 2/13

File types File names, extensions or suffixes that indicate the format or usage of a file and a brief description of that format. The file format in which you save your file depends on where it is headed… For print or a page-layout software, use TIFF, EPS, or PDF

File Types- Photoshop (.PSD) Native format for Photoshop Positive: Most flexible Can save layers, paths, channels, masks Negative: A lot of other software does not recognizes anything other than the flattened composite Negative: File size is larger than other formats Advice.. always keep a version of your work in this format.

Tagged Image File Format-TIFF First version was published by Aldus Corporation in the fall of 1986, after a series of meetings with various scanner manufacturers and software developers. Originally created as a scanning format Now used as an ideal when printing hi- resolution raster images More technically = describes image data that typically comes from scanners, and paint and photo-retouching programs.

TIFF Not a printer language or page description language. The purpose of TIFF is to describe and store raster image data. A primary goal = to provide a rich environment within which applications can exchange image data. (Both Quark XPress and InDesign can minimally change a TIFF file)

Features of TIFF: compression Saves graphics in lossless compressed (LZW) or uncompressed format. This gives you the option of using less space for an image, or loading the image faster. Used to be that LZW was to be avoided b/c it might have corrupted the file... This really no longer is the case. Can also compress with zip or jpg (don’t do- will explain later)

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) In general, encapsulation is the inclusion of one thing within another thing so that the included thing is not apparent Think of an EPS as a TIFF file that is in a capsule PostScript = a programming language that describe the appearance of a printed page. Developed by Adobe in 1985 Has become another industry standard for printing.

Features of an EPS file Saving Were designed to be imported into other programs so that these programs wouldn’t have to worry about what is in them If you save as an EPS, layers get flattened

PDF (Portable Document Format) Not a native raster file format A file format that has captured all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that you can view, navigate, print, or forward to someone else. Are natively created using Adobe Acrobat This currently is Adobe’s #1 selling software Are created by exporting from other software programs

PDF Adobe has vowed to support PDF for the next 30 years. Why is this important? Because of documentation that may need to last for 30 years or more Designers can create PDF’s for magazine advertisements, brochures, and flyers and use them on websites But- this does NOT mean that the brochure is a replacement to a designed web page with web content

PDF Features More than just images of documents Multiple pages that can zoom in or out from and can go forward or backward (navigation) Embedded type fonts so that they're available at any viewing location Interactive elements Buttons for forms entry and for triggering sound Quicktime or AVI movies PDF files are optimized for the Web by rendering text before graphic images and hypertext links.

Which file format to use for Print? 1 st thing, ask your commercial printer what they prefer! 2 nd thing, whatever Photoshop lets you save to 3 rd thing, it’s up to you Old school (TIFF) has less things that go wrong… it is what it is… EPS is TIFF in a capsule… more info./more can go wrong New school (PDF) is able to “store” the most, but this may make it most problematic