Prepressforums.com

Michelen · #1 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007, 04:42 PM

We publish video-game magazines, so our pages have lots of screen captures from games. When I first began working here, 8 years ago, I was taught to "process" these screens: open in Photoshop, adjust color and sharpness, convert to CMYK, save as .eps.

Why .eps? I have no idea. Is there any good reason anyone can think of that we could not use .tif instead?

Most of our editors are working on PCs,, design and production are on Mac. We use InDesign CS2 for page layout.

Comments?

Thanks,
Michele

#2 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007, 05:00 PM

I vote for psd.
But between tiff and eps > tiff.
Vee

Pointyhat · #3 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007, 05:11 PM

I've found an .eps give a better representation of what the final page will look like, as long as your calibrated correctly

almaink · #4 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007, 07:35 PM

eps for vector, tif for bitmap, but native is better yet. OSX finder can get confused if you save bitmaps as eps files. It's a PITA to open an eps in Illy only to see it's a bitmap :twisted: Or save as a PDF and make everyone happy, even those without Photoshop. 8)

mattbeals · #5 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007, 09:04 PM

There is only one reason to save as a EPS file and it's really a hold over from Quark. Quark cannot mess with the color or down sample the images. That's why they "work better". Quark has a nasty habit of down sampling everything it can.

Really you should be looking at TIFF's for raster images without layering or transparency. If you are using raster files with transparency or layering then PSD is the way to go. Short of that, EPS offers you no more advantages over TIFF.

Using a TIFF you have the ability to have a higher quality screen display in that Quark or InDesign can render the image at full resolution. Where as with a EPS you have a 8bit 72dpi preview that you are working with.

Michelen · #6 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007, 10:58 AM

Thank you all for your replies. Our Quark days are long over (thank goodness) so if that was the reason for using .eps format, I see no reason not to change. Gotta shake things up every now and then.

Thanks,
Michele

born2print · #7 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattbeals

There is only one reason to save as a EPS file and it's really a hold over from Quark. Quark cannot mess with the color or down sample the images. That's why they "work better". Quark has a nasty habit of down sampling everything it can.

Really you should be looking at TIFF's for raster images without layering or transparency. If you are using raster files with transparency or layering then PSD is the way to go. Short of that, EPS offers you no more advantages over TIFF.

Using a TIFF you have the ability to have a higher quality screen display in that Quark or InDesign can render the image at full resolution. Where as with a EPS you have a 8bit 72dpi preview that you are working with.

I'm a little late, but we used to use .eps because Quark would auto mask .tifs that were placed in a picture box of none and that mask was low res so it caused rastery edges. Tif and PSD are more preferred now as everyone seems to agree... JUST STAY AWAY FROM JPG and anytime you alter a JPG resave as a different format.

yleo · #8 (**permalink**) 03-29-2007, 05:34 PM

Why is a PSD better than a PDF? (I was told PDF's are even better without an explanation)

mattbeals · #9 (**permalink**) 03-29-2007, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by born2print

I'm a little late, but we used to use .eps because Quark would auto mask .tifs that were placed in a picture box of none and that mask was low res so it caused rastery edges. Tif and PSD are more preferred now as everyone seems to agree... JUST STAY AWAY FROM JPG and anytime you alter a JPG resave as a different format.

That was a bug with Quark 4. It was fixed with one of the updater extensions. If you used a zero percent color fill rather than the color "none" it didn't happen. But it only happened with boxes filled with none or white. And it wasn't a consistent thing, it was kind of random.

born2print · #10 (**permalink**) 03-30-2007, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yleo

Why is a PSD better than a PDF? (I was told PDF's are even better without an explanation)

TOTALLY depends on the piece, a PDF mat be more appropriate because of vector elements or the PSD may be more appropriate... how the PDF came to be is important...you may want to research more for yourself.