Hello, I'm in the process of creating somewhere around 50 layouts in Photoshop. I was planning on sending these layouts to be printed. I was instructed that "Ideally" they would receive the layouts as one or two .pdf files so that they wouldn't have to deal with each layout individually. My question is: Will there be any quality drop off when saving as a .pdf? Are there some things that I should watch out for when doing so? Also, can I continue to add to a .pdf without having the full version of Adobe Acrobat? Thanks

Should I just use jpg encoding at the maximum setting, "12"?

Yes. And you might want to change your documents to CMYK too. Your text and vector elements will be preserved (read: sharp), so use that when you can. Once you rasterize your text, the result will be a bit 'soft', no sharp borders, because the anti-aliasing translates to in-between pixels. So if you do lay-outs in Photoshop, try as much vectors as you can (also for boxes and lines) and save as pdf. If everything is just pixels, you might as well save as .tif file (and use LZW compression), that's a lossless file format used a lot for graphic files. I don't know about adding to a pdf without Acrobat. You can open it again in Photoshop, but in the long run, even at maximum setting, you will get jpg artefacts, because it keeps being re-compressed. By the way, I really would not recommend creating lay-outs in Photoshop if anybody asked. I asume you do not have Illustrator or InDesign? Especially the text could suffer, because the way PS handles it is not on par with programs that are made for that. But I understand you are already in the process, so good luck with that! Oh. And you have to work at 300 dpi ofcourse...

I knew before making my layouts that Illustrator was a better option, however, I had never used illustrator before, and I'm in a time crunch. So, the few minutes I spent trying to move around it showed me that I wasn't going to get things done that way. I've been working in RBG color at 300 dpi. Should I try to convert things to CYMK? WIll this mess my colors up? Or, should i just save as a pdf using jpg encoding. What woudl you recommend?

Your printer probably want cmyk stuff. Otherwise he has to do the conversion, without you controlling it (or being happy with it). Photoshop does a rather good job at it. I usually do the conversion as the last thing. When colors are really messed up, you will know that those particular colors can not be printed, you can not counter that by not converting. The printing will be done in cyan, magenta, yellow and black, so that is how it has to be done. Good luck!

Really, I did not know that?

Attached Link: No, I did not type all of that, I copied it.

Red, Green, and Blue are the "additive colors " - combine red, green and blue light, and you get white light. Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are "subtractive colors" - if you print cyan, magenta and yellow inks on paper, they ought to absorb all the light shown on them. Your eye receives no reflected light from the paper, and perceives black... in theory. In practice, printing inks contain impurities that prevent them from absorbing light perfectly. They do a pretty good job with light colors, but when you add them all together, they produce a murky brown rather than black. In order to get decent dark colors, black ink is added in increasing proportions, as the color gets darker and darker. An image that is in RGB mode is optimized for display on a computer monitor. In order to reproduce that very same image using ink on paper, it must be converted to the "CMYK" color mode. RGB gamut The word "gamut" is used to describe a range of reproducible color with a given set of tools. There are some colors which a computer monitor can display which are impossible to print using the standard "SWOP CMYK" inks in use across the United States (SWOP: standard web offset press). Most notably, certain vibrant deep blues and rich reds are "outside the gamut" of SWOP CMYK. In order to print properly, any image files that you supply for CMYK printing must be in CMYK mode [note that disc art is rarely CMYK]. RGB files will look good on screen, and they will even look good when printed on many of the desktop color printers on the market today. However, they will not separate properly when made into film, and the resulting full printing job will not look the way you expect it to look. Inexperienced graphic designers, unfamiliar with the limitations of the SWOP CMYK gamut, supply us with a steady stream of RGB files, which we relentlessly convert to CMYK mode before sending for film output. Much of the time, the color change that occurs is slight. Every once in a while, though, we get artwork whose effectiveness is severely compromised when the color range is compressed during the transition to CMYK mode. It is often a challenging task to explain to the designer why there is absolutely no way to get that blue using CMYK, no matter how much we want to. Recommended Workflow for designing for CMYK printing Here are a few application specific tips. Photoshop: Your scanner almost certainly generates RGB information. Don't worry, that's how it's supposed to work. In fact, you should leave your color files in RGB mode up until you need to print separations, or until you need to know CMYK ink values, so you can match colors in another program. While you're working, check how your files are going to look by turning on the "CMYK preview" mode. Don't make repeated changes between RGB and CMYK mode, using the mode menu. Every time you switch, a little clarity is lost. One switch is no problem; 20 switches makes a difference. You may ask, why not simply switch to CMYK mode as soon as possible? 1) RGB files are 25% smaller, and are therefore 25% faster to work with and easier to store. 2) The SWOP CMYK gamut is pretty small. If you ever want to reproduce those files for a different medium (such as the web), you'll have thrown away some potentially useful information 3) Some filters only work in RGB mode. Or copy-paste how this is found: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=RGB+vs+CMYK&btnG=Search

Thanks for the info. So, you would convert to pdf using JPEG Compression, rather than ZIP? It looks like ZIP is a "lossless" compression format. Wouldn't that be better. I guess file sizes would be larger, wouldn't they?

I would give it a try, it is indeed lossless, but your printer must have the final word on that, not very RIP can handle zip-ped files inside a pdf. Ask him/her! Good luck, don't be afraid to ask. (I am on GMT+1 time)

Jeez, I might just give them the PS files and have them deal with the individual files :)

It pays to learn the tricks of the printing trade yourself... (I learned it the hard way too....)

Most printers will accept .psd files as well. Some, in fact, would rather have the layered .psd files.