Bleed and trim marks

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3dmus
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Registriert: Do 12 Aug 2010 09:35

Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von 3dmus »

Hi - I'm just trialing Photoline 19.01 (currently I've got a license for 18.5) and I'm ascertaining as to whether or not I can start using it as a substitute for Photoshop + Illustrator for my card designs. My current workflow basically consists of prepping the art-work in PS and then importing this into Illustrator for the final card design. From here I then export a PDF with a specified bleed + trim marks to send of to the Printers.

I always take into account the bleed and ensure that the artwork covers the bleed area too. So, for my A6 cards I prep an image size in PS that is basically A6 + 3mm bleed. This then gets imported into an Illustrator template where you can clearly see what's the bleed etc. I then export it as PDF with a specified bleed of 3mm.


Now, I've been experimenting with Photoline but have hit some issues:

- I created an A6 template (essentially A6 + 3mm on each side --> 111mm(105 + 6) x 154mm (148 +6) )
- To aid with the art work I then set up 4 guides to see where the bleed is
- When exporting to PDF (tried both X1a and X3) I then set the bleed in the save options to 3mm

- Issue 1: this however seems to create a document that is reported to be 117mm x 160mm by Adobe Reader: conclusion here seems to be that Photoline ADDS the bleed, instead of "interpreting" the document to already contain the bleed. Is this correct? Having said that, when I import the PDF back into Photoline it interprets everything correctly (111 X 154)



Issue 2: As I couldn't see the trim marks, I found out that I need to set this in the layout options (print markers) and tick the "Cut markers" and set it to 3mm. Upon exporting, I now see the trim marks... However, the position of the artwork vis-a-vis the edge seems to have changed (further away from the border). Also, in Adobe Reader it's now reported as 161.8mm x 204.8mm!
Importing it back into Photoline is fine again though: right size is being reported.

BTW, I also tried to import the generated PDFs into illustrator, and in Illustrator the artwork PLUS the trim marks have shifted to the bottom left of the art board. Very weird.

So....are these bugs? Is this operator/user error? It *seems* to me that there's an issue with the PDF export.

Also, what's the best workflow for my purposes?

Many thanks.
bkh
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Registriert: Do 26 Nov 2009 22:59

Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von bkh »

3dmus hat geschrieben:- Issue 1: this however seems to create a document that is reported to be 117mm x 160mm by Adobe Reader: conclusion here seems to be that Photoline ADDS the bleed, instead of "interpreting" the document to already contain the bleed. Is this correct?
Yes, bleed is added outside the PL document, so the PL document size should be equal to the size of the end result. To allow for bleed, artwork should continue outside the document area (use View -> Hide Border Content to hide/view content beyond the document border). Of course, you can add guides outside the document to align that material.
3dmus hat geschrieben:Issue 2: As I couldn't see the trim marks, I found out that I need to set this in the layout options (print markers) and tick the "Cut markers" and set it to 3mm. Upon exporting, I now see the trim marks... However, the position of the artwork vis-a-vis the edge seems to have changed (further away from the border). Also, in Adobe Reader it's now reported as 161.8mm x 204.8mm!
Importing it back into Photoline is fine again though: right size is being reported.
Looks like PL does not include a CropBox when exporting cut markers. In this way, Adobe Reader shows the entire page as it would go to the printer, including bleed and any markers. The part in the Trim Box (turn trim box display on in Adobe Reader) corresponds to the document in PL , and the page size shown in the Reader is the actual paper size needed for printing. In this way, you can check if the content outside the visible area is as expected. Adding a CropBox would cause Adobe Reader to just display the visible (trimmed) page, not sure if this makes any sense if the PDF is intended for printing.

If you don't use markers, PL normally adds a CropBox (probably because it assumes that the PDF is for screen display).

Btw., since the bleed is outside the document, you should normally set the cut markers to 0 mm to match the PDF trim box.


Cheers

Burkhard.
3dmus
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von 3dmus »

Thanks for that Burkhard. That makes total sense now.
3dmus
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von 3dmus »

I just had a play with it, taking into account Burkhard's comments. It looks a lot better now, but I am still wondering about 2 things:

1) When I compare a PDF output from Illustrator to PL, the PL total page size in Adobe Reader is significantly larger. I don't know if this truly matters to a Printing House or not though (as so far I've only used Illustrator and they never had an issue with that). The pics show the difference (Illustrator: Illustrator.JPG, 2nd one from PL: PL.JPG)

2) When I import the PL generated PDF into Illustrator, things look wonky (content moved to bottom left) (PL export in Illustrator.JPG)

So, whilst I don't know if the above would pose any real life issue, it does (seem to) highlight that Bleed/Trim Marks etc in a PDF export are treated differently in the 2 programs.
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mwenz
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Registriert: Fr 13 Mai 2011 23:50

Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von mwenz »

bkh hat geschrieben:Looks like PL does not include a CropBox when exporting cut markers. In this way, Adobe Reader shows the entire page as it would go to the printer, including bleed and any markers. The part in the Trim Box (turn trim box display on in Adobe Reader) corresponds to the document in PL , and the page size shown in the Reader is the actual paper size needed for printing. In this way, you can check if the content outside the visible area is as expected. Adding a CropBox would cause Adobe Reader to just display the visible (trimmed) page, not sure if this makes any sense if the PDF is intended for printing...
PL does include all the relevant boxes, including the cropbox. One just needs Acrobat to view them properly.

FWIW, set the Print Cut Markers to zero. Any other amount alters the position of the markers. At zero they should be correctly positioned for most all print PDFs.

The page size, at least for US paper sizes, is off. US Letter should export to Letter.Extra (which is 9" x 12"). PL exports to PDF a page size of 10.5" x 13". Not a big deal in the scheme of things to most service bureaus, but it isn't right with the extra "padding" around the page.

If one want to inspect the PDF in Illy, choose to use the cropbox when placing the PDF. Also, make sure the page size matches the trim size before placing. It will be placed properly. Cropbox is the virtual paper size of the PDF.
3dmus
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von 3dmus »

Thanks for your input! So, that confirms what I see too: the additional padding. Would it be worthwhile creating a bug report for this?
bkh
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Registriert: Do 26 Nov 2009 22:59

Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von bkh »

mwenz hat geschrieben: PL does include all the relevant boxes, including the cropbox. One just needs Acrobat to view them properly.
No, it doesn't if trim marks are on (just have a look into the uncompressed PDF file itself). Maybe Acrobat displays the default value (the media box).
3dmus hat geschrieben:Thanks for your input! So, that confirms what I see too: the additional padding. Would it be worthwhile creating a bug report for this?
Strictly speaking, this is not a bug (because PDF specs don't specify anything about the size of the MediaBox vs. TrimBox). But if there are informal standards, it would, of course, be preferable if PL adhered to them. Do you have any reference for such a "standard" for various page sizes?

Cheers

Burkhard.
3dmus
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von 3dmus »

Good points again Burkhard..... just been doing some reading on this. So, as there's no standard for Mediabox in the PDF standard and usually determined by the printers, it would be nice if we could specify the mediabox size as part of the PDF export? More of a feature request then I suppose!
mwenz
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von mwenz »

Burkhard,

Without a crop box, one could make a PDF from a page that had say a background that is twice the size of the page. The PDF would then not clip at the crop box. It's part of every PDF routine I have used in the past in applications in the page dictionary. It's easy enough to check boxes for any PDF on Linux, I'm using Windows.

If I pull apart a PL PDF as mentioned above, unclipping the PDF, the parts clipped at what Acrobat considers the crop box indeed does show the remainder of the object. The display in the PDF is clipped in Acrobat and Reader, but the object I just made does extend way past the displayable page definition. If that is not the result of the crop box, it is for all practicable purposes.

Relevant documentation may be PDF specification ISO 32000-1:2008. The GHENT people advocate to not use the crop box. So without pulling a PDF apart from PL and looking for the definition, I dunno for certain.
bkh
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von bkh »

mwenz hat geschrieben:The display in the PDF is clipped in Acrobat and Reader, but the object I just made does extend way past the displayable page definition. If that is not the result of the crop box, it is for all practicable purposes.
So you're seeing a cropped view (without the crop marks) when opening a PDF from PL in Adobe Reader? The latest Adobe Reader here on OS X (11.0.11) shows the entire page, including crop marks, like the PL.JPG sample file above. Maybe the result differs depending on some PDF export option in PL – I'm currently using Continuous Transparency/Original Colour Space options, or there's some option in Adobe Reader.

Cheers

Burkhard.

P.S. As I wrote above, PL adds a crop box if you don't include any print markers, so make sure your document has crop markers.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Bleed and trim marks

Beitrag von greenmorpher »

Don’t rely on printers or other service providers to be using the latest OS or apps. Of necessity, they are very conservative about changing their workflow. Ask your printer what OS and Acrobat they are using and work to that.

Cheers, Geoff