alternative to PhotoShop?

Have you tried iPhoto?

Not many out there which will work in the CMYK color mode. GIMP is a free open source app which is much like Photoshop. You can also export an RGB image out of Preview after assigning the OS X provided CMYK profile to the image. That converts it to CMYK and can then be saved that way to a new file.

Peggie wrote:

I am preparing a family photo album for printing. The printer wants files to be 600 dpi, CMYK, PDFs. I previously prepared some using PhotoShop. The files were so large the printer had to take them into InDesign to reduce the size. I am now trying out a trial copy of iStudio Publisher which does not really have capability to deal with raw images.

Is there another image application (hopefully not as expensive) that can prepare images for printing? I need to be able to prepare 600 dpi, CMYK images to save as jpgs to put in my Publisher documents.

Any suggestions or ideas would be welcome.

Thank you

Peggie

When you say "printer' i am guessing that you mean a commercial printer - a person - that wants hi-res output files, such as would be output from an imagesetter, a professional hi-res printer(device), that prints film negatives for each color Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. He would then take those films and create "printing plates" (flexible metal sheets that attach to the printing press) which is inked in the corresponding color, paper fed to the press and comes out the other end with that color printed (if a single press). He/she then would stack up that run - place the next color plate on the press, etc. If a four-color or six-color press is used, all the plates/inks can be run with a single stack of paper and comes out the other end as the finished product.

It has been my experience that you deliver digital files at or above the target resolution of the output device (imagesetter). A lot of printing companies have their own, but back in the day, there were "service bureaus" that output the films. Any output device (printer) will disregard the "extra" information over its limit to deliver. Outputting hi-res images has been known to take a while in any case.

My advice is to stick with PhotoShop and let the printer deal with the files as he/she sees fit - they are equipped to do so - service-bureau or in-house.

There really is no equal APP in my opinion.

Adobe helped build Apple MacIntosh as a brand with it and other applications.

CCC

In reply to self

Be aware of the difference between DotsPerInch (DPI output device resolution- ) and PixelsPerInch (PPI screen resolution talk). In PhotoShop "Image Size" dialog, simply put "600" in the Resolution field, then put the "size in inches" you want in either Document Size field and let the Pixel Dimensions do what it will.

I have a feeling that whomever you are talking to doesn't really know the difference, which is why he/she had to resort to InDesign for downsampling.

The screen you see in front of you is about a 2.18Mb TIFF file. At 600ppi, same output size (10" x 14" say) is 151.2Mb file.

I think you need to get on the "same page" in terminology.

Post the output device make & model and I can advise you.

CCC

GraphicConverter can convert a photo to the CMYK mode. Give the demo a try.

Don't get hung up on DPI vs. PPI. Very few people in the professional printing industry ever say PPI. It's too close to, and too confusing to DPI. Virtually anyone in a press or prepress shop will say DPI if they're talking about a digital image, and line screen if they want to know the device output resolution. Way back when I started on Scitex Imager III workstations, everything was stated as DPI. It was the same on the competing Chromacom stations. Nobody used the term PPI until much later. Why did someone think we needed another term for line screen? Who knows. Note that your own vendor states DPI rather than PPI.

Anyway, there's a conflict in your post. First you say 600 dpi PDF file. A PDF is a container file which can hold various types of elements. It has no resolution of its own. Later you say 600 dpi JPEG images, which makes much more sense when you're talking about images of the type you're printing (family photos). No idea why they want 600 dpi images when standard printing resolution is 300 dpi. Probably has to do with the type of digital press they're using.

Back to Preview. DO NOT do ChitlinsCC states and blow up the size of your files as in his example. Your images will not only be unnecessarily huge, but they will be very pixelated and soft if you add that much pixel information to your files. Do this.

Open a file and choose Tools > Adjust Size from the menu. Make sure Resample image is off! As seen here:

If I were to leave it on after changing the resolution to 600, the image would have twice as many pixels added to the file to maintain the same dimensional size while getting it to the 600 dpi number I entered. With it off, the only thing that changes is the image resolution. The pixels of the image do not change one bit. Repeat for all other images you're using to reset the resolution without scaling (resampling) them.

I work in the publishing industry and we often supply pages/images as high resolution PDFs. Perhaps that will suit the printer. Or you can reduce the size of the files in Photoshop.

Saying that, I must agree with a few others that a printer should be able to handle Photoshop files. It's a standard publishing format. Sure as book publishers we put the images into InDesign to create a page layout but that doesn't mean the printer should complain if he got Photoshop images. Usually they complain about the small fuzzy images from lesser applications. 😁

Peggie,

Stick with PhotoShop. You own the premier image software in the world.

what is the SOURCE for your digital images? Scanned photos? iPhone? Digital camera? Doesn't matter.

IF you are scanning real snapshot prints made from film (remember film), they are the best you can get. I forget what dots per inch were for drugstore prints, but they are good enough for the naked eye. Scan at 300dpi or better and you are OK.

Your photos cannot be made any better than the original. Up-sampling after scanning is pointless and will produce unwanted distortion.

In PhotoShop > [Image menu] > Image Size > dialog - UNCHECK Resample Image at the bottom, Enter the physical size you want (in INCHES) to see on the page, and let PhotoShop do the rest. The "resolution" (pixels/inch) will change accordingly. That's as good as it gets. The output device may "LIKE" more but trying to give it to it will only be a waste and produce poor results.

Save as PDF and your done.

My point is that you and your service provider need to talk more, as I stated.

Kurt

You are of course right, in that she should NOT do what I said in terms of the PShop process ! It was to illustrate the complexities of what she is being instructed to do.It is really simple in that she has PhotoShop and has worked with it before.

My point is that she and her service provider need to talk more, as I stated.

CCC

Peggie

Another thought. I don't know how many of these albums you are going to have produced. 10? 50? 1000?

When you factor in printing AND binding, what price per unit has been quoted?

You can get a Digital Photo Frame with a SD Card (±4.5 GB storage = perhaps thousands of photos) at W**M*** for $40.<-editing is mine

Caption your own photos in PShop. Load 'em up and voila, high-tech photo album. Some even have clocks and sound.

Good luck.

CCC

Ah. I wasn't quite sure, so thought I'd better clarify. Don't know how I missed she's already using Photoshop. There's no reason to find an alternative. She could also setup an Action to set the resolution, convert to CMYK, and save the processed images to a new folder.

How to convert sRGB images to CMYK | Adobe Community

How to Batch Convert RGB to CMYK in Photoshop

DPI has no meaning until you specify a print size. Then you can determine if you image size is sufficient to print at 600 dpi. For instance if your prints are to be 8" x 10" then the image size would have to be, at a minimum, 4800 pixels x 6000 pixels. This will explain dpi in more detail: The Myth of DPI.