Poor Image quality upon PDF export

jeff hammond · 5 Nov 2010, 04:56

[[oh, everytime i post a thread here, it's always mistaken as a SU thread... so just a heads up -- this is the layout forum ]]

Has anyone figured out a way to get better image quality in their pdf exports?

or, has anyone else noticed the image degradation that occurs upon exporting?

i have a pdf due tomorrow which includes 5 renders.. all of which look way softer than the original tiffs.. i'm pretty sure i ran out of options and things to try as far as layout settings/prefs go..

the SU scenes look ok as does the text/dimension and scrapbook objects but it's the pictures that look like bleep..

thanks for any help

jeff hammond · 5 Nov 2010, 17:23

meh, had to send it out as is...

i really want layout to be my go to as far as presentations and even const.docs are concerned but this has sort of put a damper on things..
i'll continue to explore further and post any findings..

fwiw, the images are 780x1200
i was thinking the problem might be that i was using 11x8 1/2" paper and the pdf was showing something similar as to what would happen if i printed it..

roughly, at the size they were being placed in the layout document, they would print at approx 150dpi which is definitely on the low side for printed images.. so i tried putting them in at a size where they'd be over 300dpi and the same problem occurs (still soft/compressed/etc)

another thing i tried (and this had more to do with the final size of the pdf) was at first, the images (5 of them) were linked as the original tiffs of ~3MB each.. the pdf ended up being around 10MB with that so i changed them to high quality jpgs of ~600kb and the final size dropped to 9MB.. so, there's something weird going on there as well..

jeff hammond · 5 Nov 2010, 18:29

more--

i might of opened a can of worms because i don't think this is layout specific.. i'm getting similar results when i try to export to PDF via pages (apple style msword).. + countless similar stories/questions can be found on the web with a wide variety of apps and operating systems..

found a few 'cures' so far but none are seeming to help much.. i'll keep looking into it.

bjanzen · 9 Nov 2010, 00:43

Can you take the time to hybrid render? Does that help?

b

jeff hammond · 9 Nov 2010, 00:47

hmm.. i just posted in that other thread about this so i hope it doesn't get too confusing

i don't think the different render settings matter for what i'm talking about (or do they?)

i'm talking about bringing in a jpg or tiff which sit on a page by itself.. nothing to do with the sketchup model(s) which sit on different pages..
also, logos etc will be affected.

Anssi · 9 Nov 2010, 19:08

I don't know how it is with the system-integrated PDF functions on the Mac, but Adobe Acrobat printing on the PC has a lot of configurable settings that affect image quality. I am usually doing low-end things to be printed on desktop printers so the default downsampling of images to 150 DPI, for instance, is usually OK with me, but I can easily see situations where a more ambitious setting - with the greatly increased file size - would be preferable.

Anssi

jeff hammond · 10 Nov 2010, 03:12

well, i'm pretty sure i figured out what a lot of the problem is and it's user error..
(nothing to do with export setting etc..)

i'll try some stuff later under my latest realization and see if it turns up correct.. fingers crossed..
i'll post back later with the results.

3dsketchupper · 10 Nov 2010, 06:39

if you are printing a3 pdf try creating your document
in layout at A1 size