Slowly but surely-Output Technologies are switching

(NPES International E-commerce Website, August 21, 2008) In classic workflow systems Adobe PostScript has for many years been the output technology of choice for rasterizing digital layouts for film or plate. This now appears to be changing - slowly but surely. Fujifilm boasts that, with its XMF workflow system, it is the first manufacturer to on the one hand completely fulfil the JDF standard, whilst at the same time integrating the new Adobe PDF Print Engine technology.

Step by step, the competition has followed and at drupa all the major system suppliers will be showing their systems with the PDF Print Engine. It is no surprise, because PDF has long since established itself in the printing industry as a stable exchange and printing format that, as a rule, renders surperfluous the time consuming correction needed when open and usually error-strewn layout and graphic program files are delivered.

PDF and transparencies
But cannot the latest PostScript RIPs (Raster Image Processors) process PDFs already? At least this is what the advertizing copy keeps on saying. It is also essentially true, PostScript 3 RIPs are able to accept PDFs but the processing involves a trick. The PDF is first invisibly converted into the PostScript format and then ripped, and the consequence is longer rather than shorter computing times. However, there is one important problem that PostScript cannot solve: transparencies. Even today these bring beads of sweat to the brows of prepress staff. Ever since DTP programs have made it easy for graphic designers to use transparencies these effects have featured more and more frequently in layouts. Adobe itself undoubtedly paved the way with its Creative Suite package, but Quark Xpress and Corel Draw have followed with similar functions. In PostScript transparent areas must first be flattened, because this mature page description language cannot cope with such modern refinements. This quite frequently leads to setting problems when, for example, transitions become visible where there are none or if the resolution of the flattened areas is simply too low for the print.

PDF Print Engine
The PDF Print Engine promises the solution to this problem and more. First and foremost, the system handles the situation by working with native transparencies within a PDF, which means that the transparent areas are only actually blended during ripping. Up until this point, the file can be handled flexibly and the file sizes are substantially smaller. Such a work flow obviously requires PDFs in which transparencies remain in native format, which with the proven PDF/X standards is only the case from PDF/X-4 onwards. It also depends upon the graphic or layout program being able to generate PDFs with true transparencies. Since Distiller only goes to PDF via PostScript it is not a suitable tool for this. There is nothing too surprising here, since the programs of the Creative Suite are able to generate clean PDFs, including native transparencies. Although flattening operates very well in QuarkXpress, he program currently lacks any understanding of native transparencies.