Hello,

I'm a design amateur trying to create promotional material for my small business. I'm not having much luck saving them as pdf or eps for the printers. Linked below are examples of the back of my business card in several formats including the working file, card back.svg, and a png export that shows exactly how it looks on my screen.

On the pdf there are several elements that don't seem to line up properly. On each fish there is a drop shadow that has migrated several pixels upward from its original spot. Note that they aren't real filters but blurred objects acting as filters. There's also white background text behind my company name that has migrated downward just a little bit. I found my text color by creating a duplicate white text behind the color text and adjusting the transparency of the top color until it looked good to my eye. I know this isn't a best practice but it was easier for me not being a pro. Either way, the text is perfectly aligned in the Inkscape svg but one seems to have moved a little bit in the pdf.

I'm also including the eps export. I'm not quite sure how it turned out because the only viewers I have (Ghostscript on this computer and an ancient copy of Illustrator 10 on my old Pentium 4 from college), show it very pixelly, which confuses me greatly--isn't this another vector format?

Also of note, I have two texture filters on the card, one on the blue background and one on the blue fish ball. Different PDF viewers seem to render these differently: Adobe Reader shows the background only, Chrome shows the ball only. I'm not too worried about this right now because I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the textures or not and I understand there is limited support for filters in these formats. I welcome design advice, too, but understand if the mods want to keep that in the appropriate forum.

Any tips on how to fix these little issues would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Dan




http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52114623/card%20back.svg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52114623/back.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52114623/back.eps

dbhyslop wrote:On the pdf there are several elements that don't seem to line up properly.

Based on the hints your files reveal to me, you are using Inkscape 0.48.1 on Windows: try exporting to PDF with the current stable release (0.48.2) - on Windows, it includes a newer version of the cairo library (1.10.2) which should no longer trigger those unwanted vertical shifts (Inkscape 0.48.1 (installer file name: Inkscape-0.48.1-2.exe) still has cairo 1.8.8).

dbhyslop wrote:I'm also including the eps export. I'm not quite sure how it turned out because the only viewers I have (Ghostscript on this computer and an ancient copy of Illustrator 10 on my old Pentium 4 from college), show it very pixelly, which confuses me greatly--isn't this another vector format?

Postscript is a vector format, but it does not support transparency / reduced opacity: any objects with partial transparency are rasterized and embedded as raster images in the Postscript files. (Tip: you can open the exported EPS file in Notepad: even without understanding PostScript, one can tell that the only content of the file is a large, embedded bitmap image). The smoothness of such an EPS file in various viewers depends on whether and how well they support anti-aliasing for display (AFAIU).

Note also that any kind of filter effect (including blur, which is also a basic SVG filter effect) are rasterized for both formats (PDF and Postscript), since none of the two formats do have similar native features like filter effects in SVG - see also "PDF, PostScript, and EPS export" from the Release notes of Inkscape 0.47 (still applies to current versions). You can turn off the rasterization when exporting, with the result that none of the effects applied in Inkscape will be used in the exported format (usually not what users need, that's why Inkscape defaults to preserve appearance (using embedded bitmap images) over pure 'vector' exports).

One major difference between saving a copy as PDF and as PostScript (PS/EPS) is that transparency by itself (without blurs or other filter effects), or reduced opacity, is supported by PDF (though some PDF viewers (IIRC like e.g. Foxit on Windows) are known to have issues with how reduced (global) opacity (for individual objects or groups) has to be converted into PDF drawing instructions - it is far more complex than "simple" transparency of either the fill or stroke color).

dbhyslop wrote:Also of note, I have two texture filters on the card, one on the blue background and one on the blue fish ball. Different PDF viewers seem to render these differently: Adobe Reader shows the background only, Chrome shows the ball only. I'm not too worried about this right now because I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the textures or not and I understand there is limited support for filters in these formats. I welcome design advice, too, but understand if the mods want to keep that in the appropriate forum.

I haven't looked into this yet (Apple's Preview and Evince 2.30.3 show the 'texture effect' for the background, and a shaded fishball (without visible 'texture effect').

I`m using Opera 11.60 on Win7, and I could open .svg and .pdf with it.
Pdf doesn`t shows pattern/filter on the blue ball, but .svg does aswell as unwanted movement for a few pixels. Also, .eps file contains "rough paper" under the image (when opened in newer Illustrator). Well, this could be info for dbhyslop and others interested, but it shouldn`t be like this when you prepare files for printing.

Raster images for printing should be as plain as possible, just in the right resolution, proportions and with proper dpi`s. If needed, color separations are only layers that might be needed in printshop. It`s pretty much the same for vector layers, but it all can be interrupted with artistic ambition for experiments ,)

@ dbhyslop
You have made some interventions on surfaces and it enhances the whole appearance, but these are too subtle to be properly observed/perceived. The blue ball especially. I didn`t made print tests, but when I saw how it looks in 1:1 I could not understand why have you made those tinny "spots" on that small ball? Well, if they carry some secret message... pardon my ignorance ,) Maybe if you make it simply with the same sensibility and with occasional 1:1 preview, I`m sure you`ll get far more better result.

Thanks for the feedback!

suv hit the nail on the head with the software version. Such a basic solution is a little embarrassing--must be my first day on a computer or something! The pdf issue is now resolved.

Thank you for the additional information about filters and transparencies. I had seen a previous post you wrote about cloning an object and blurring it as an alternative to using the drop-shadow in the filter menu, but I misunderstood the benefit to be that the blur itself would stay as a vector. Leaving some filter effect rasters embedded in the vector is fine as long as they come through correctly at the printer's and still give me nice crisp vector lines where I need them.

Maestral:

I suppose the color separations are just my amateurism coming through. On the back of the business card (and likewise the fishball spots) I had just started with a rectangular gradient background. I added the texture as a separate layer and transparency because I wasn't quite sure how to soften the filter and apply it directly to the background. Likewise with the text, but I think I've since figured out how to do that one right.

I originally sent the images to the printer as 300dpi png files, but was unhappy with the proof. I could see soft edges whereas the printers' own business card--printed on the same machine--was very crisp. The desire to give them a vector-based file is what prompted my original question.

I'm not sure if I want to keep my "spots" or not. I realize they're invisible at business-card size, but the logo will exist elsewhere at larger sizes, including the front of the card. I felt adding some type of texture would make it a little more visually interesting, but I'm really not sure if it's the effect that I want. I'm attaching 96 dpi proofs of the front and back.

Dan

^ Color separations refers to CMYK color code printing. In these cases, colors Cyan,Magenta,Yellow and Key are on separate layers.

"I could see soft edges whereas the printers' own business card--printed on the same machine--was very crisp."
There is so many things which could lead to lack of crispness, but just to mention that not all of the colors from screen/monitor can be printed. On paper, you have no backlight ,)

This might show you a difference between screen and print colors.