Black & White Printing Issue

[VincentNord]

Hi all, I have just done a print test using the black & white publishing option. The test copy was delivered today and I have to say I'm shocked with the quality.

A little background:

1. The pages have photography full bleed - In InDesign I said to use document bleed (4mm)
2. The images were all Grayscale
3. The PDF proof file looked okay

The result:

1. The black have no definition, they appear pale and 'very' washed out
2. There is horizontal banding across the photographs (almost as if toner was running out lol)
3. The images have not printed full bleed, there is a white line running across every page at the bottom

Any ideas are really welcome.
Vince 

[Ken Anderson]

The colour definition is probably a printing glitch.
Contact support and send then a picture of the problem.
They probably order up a reprint. 

I always give my images at least 6mm overlap over the page size.
What page, marging & bleed setting do you have.

[VincentNord]

Thanks I've now changed the bleed settings.

In terms of the banding I've just sent support images so they can see.

In terms of black and whites not printing as I see on screen (Not even close), they are really pale - any ideas?

Thanks,
Vince 

[Ken Anderson]

How you edit your images?

I recommead Grayscale, 300dpi save as JPG or TIFF.
If you're using Photoshop then set the output levels to lie between 10min and 240max.

Also let InDesign produce the PDF (High Quality print setting) 

[VincentNord]

Thanks for the reply Ken.

The images are 300dpi, saved out as either jpg or tiff, if saved as jpg they are set to 12 which is the max output if that's what you mean?

I then build the layouts within InDesign, and use the Lulu profile for the creation of the PDF, the only thing I change in the save process is the compression for monochrome images, I have changed it from 1200 pixels per inch to 300 (Bicubix Downsampling) and did the same where it says "for images above', compression is set to zip, is this okay? I just figured the 1200 pixels is way above 300 e.g. dpi = ppi?

Would this dramatically effect the output?  Many thanks :-)

[Ken Anderson]

Description
Use these settings to create Adobe PDF documents for quality printing on desktop printers and proofers. Created PDF documents can be opened with Acrobat and Adobe Reader 5.0 and later.

PDF Preset: [High Quality Print]

Compatibility: Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4)

Standards Compliance: None

General
Pages: All
Spreads: Off
Generate Thumbnails: Off
Optimise PDF: On
Create Acrobat Layers: N/A
Export Layers: Visible and Printable Layers
Include Bookmarks: Off
Include Hyperlinks: Off
Export Nonprinting Objects: Off
Export Visible Guides and Baseline Grids: Off
Create Tagged PDF: On
Interactive Elements: Do Not Include

Compression
Colour Images
Bicubic Downsample at: 300 ppi
for images above: 450 ppi
Compression: Automatic
Tile Size: N/A
Quality: Maximum

Greyscale Images
Bicubic Downsample at: 300 ppi
for images above: 450 ppi
Compression: Automatic
Tile Size: N/A
Quality: Maximum

Monochrome Images
Bicubic Downsample at: 1200 ppi
for images above: 1800 ppi
Compression: CCITT Group 4

Compress Text and Line Art: On
Crop Image Data to Frames: On

Marks and Bleeds
Crop Marks: Off
Bleed Marks: Off
Registration Marks: Off
Colour Bars: Off
Page Information: Off
Page Mark Type: Default
Weight: 0.25 pt
Offset: 2.117 mm
Use Document Bleed Settings: Off
Bleed Top: 0 mm
Bleed Bottom: 0 mm
Bleed Left: 0 mm
Bleed Right: 0 mm
Include Slug Area: Off

Output
Colour Conversion: No Colour Conversion
Destination: N/A
Profile Inclusion Policy: Include Tagged Source Profiles

Simulate Overprint: N/A
Output Intent Profile Name: N/A
Output Condition: N/A
Output Condition Identifier: N/A
Registry Name: N/A

Advanced
Subset Fonts Below: 100%
Omit PDF: Off
Omit EPS: Off
Omit Bitmap Images: Off
Transparency Flattener Preset: N/A
Ignore Spread Overrides: N/A

Security
N/A

Warnings

[philgale]

I had the same issue of image quality and was told to get good greyscale I would have to print in colour!

A year or so later orderd another copy and results exactly the same, pale and lined like ink running out on printer.

Pure black snd white images came out fine with full black.
Greyscale - TERRIBLE.

Was considering a test print in colour, but price sooo much more for just a decent greyscale.

Just one of my gripes.

[worth1003]

I found Ken's suggestions for tuning up B&W images in this and another thread very helpful. I was hoping he or someone else who has done this successfully might have time to answer a few questions for me?

I had made an 8.5x11 casebound B&W interior LULU book for my family genealogy a year or so ago and was very happy with the results. I subsequently made a new revision that more than doubled the number of pages (and images). I just ordered a test copy of the book and I'm a lot less happy - especially with the new images I included. Many of them are far too faint/washedout looking.

Partly this may be because it seems as if LULU went to a less bright white paper in the interim between when the first book was printed and now, but that is only a very slight difference and I'm not that picky.

The earlier photos were all 200 dpi (I scanned them 15 years ago before I knew I needed more resolution than that) and in grayscale. The newer images are at least 300 dpi (sometimes 600 dpi) in full RGB color. All are JPG files with medium compression. Generally I eyeballed the brightness and contrast such that it looked good in a final PDF in color. I generally use the middle slider in the LEVELS tool in Photoshop to do this (and crop in the outer sliders to get true black and white). I did not know to limit the output levels. I did not bother to change the resolution since I usually did the cropping and sizing of each photo in InDesign as I laid out the book and wanted to keep as much resolution as possible for a resized image. I ran the final PDF out of InDesign in color using the LULU PDF output profile and uploaded it to LULU.

Anyway, I have several hundred photos. Do I have to go back and resample them down to 300 dpi? or is more resolution than that going to work out ok? (If I do have to constrain the resolution to 300, I would have to go into the book to figure out how big the image is and then go back to adjust the original image to match along with the cropping. A LOT of work!)

I'm guessing I have to change them all to Grayscale? I was kind of hoping to easily produce a color interior version of the book along with the B&W version from the same PDF file. Not a good idea?

Is there an advantage to messing with the output curves instead of using the level tool in PS? I'm getting the impression that the grayscale is not particularly linear?

Other than output levels 10% - 240% (which doesn't seem to change the appearance in PS a whole lot btw), are there any other settings I should use to make this more of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get?

Since I have a proof book to work from, I can certainly make the images that look too light darker. But I had precisely the opposite problem with the first book (to a less extreme extent) where they were too dark. I'm wondering how consistent the printing is. ie. Am I likely to get a book on one order where the images are too light and another on another order where they are too dark?

Anyway, thank you in advance for any answers I can get for my questions!

Don Worth
Valencia, CA