Printing in Photoshop or InDesign

[Dirk Rösler]

Hi -- in one of the Brooks Jensen podcasts he mentions printing with InDesign, presmumably for adding text and improved positioning etc.

I have always printed from PS directly, scaling the image and enlarging canvas as needed. Still, the InDesign way seems easier, esp. when doing 2-up etc.

Is there any guidance on how to prepare images to print from layout software?

[Walter Calahan]

I find printing directly from InDesign a pain in the butt.

Instead, I design my layout in InDesign (much better type treatment than Photoshop), then export the design has a PDF at the highest quality level. Then I print from Acrobat with excellent results. It's a two step solution, but I get better results than printing from InDesign directly. InDesign's printing set up is screwy.

[matthew blais]

In Design has pretty good color control settings(color space/profiles), and being an Adobe product as well, is fine to print from once you discover the best settings. Most all commercial printers are using a PDF workflow these days, and color amongst the Adobe products is fairly well synched.

Try the same image from all three and see what gives you the best result.
I usually export to PDF as Walter suggests, mainly because for my design stuff it's more compatible for my printers.

[Dirk Rösler]

Thanks, I shall try that. So how do you prepare the picture for placing into InDesign? Scale 100%, sharpen etc.?

[neil poulsen]

I know that InDesign is capable of maintaining a separate profile or working space for each image in the InDesign file. But, I'm not sure how this is accomplished.

[matthew blais]

You can scale an image down or up in ID...usually I'll go down to fit the image box.
Do your regular profiles Adobe rgb, cmyk, etc (depending on output), regular sharpening. Best to set the image profile in PS and then set the same in ID. I always give the image box a fill of white. Just set the color settings/profiles in ID