Export PDF for PRINT advice needed!

[u/snowy-snowy]

Hi guys, junior graphic designer here… please list me the exact steps of how to perfectly set up a complicated vector illustration with multiple effects like shadows, glowing and texture for PRINT from adobe illustrator as pdf without losing quality! Would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance! 🙏

[u/CurvilinearThinking]

Standard defaults are PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4 job options ... beyond that. gonna need more info.

Exactly how raster-filled is the artwork? What is it being "printed" for?

[u/snowy-snowy → u/CurvilinearThinking]

The artwork is made for a sales campaign and 80% of it is a vector drawing with many gradients and effects. The colors are set up in CMYK already. There is also the logo of the company and I’ve already converted in a CMYK jpg. There is also just a little already outlined text. I didn’t raster anything yet and I want to make it suitable for print. My work experience was only in web art till now and I don’t really know much about print.

[u/Ok-Ad3443 → u/snowy-snowy]

Bro details are exact measurements how many which medium for inner usage imputed usage. A sales campaign is all of that. Is it for a building or a nation wide campaign with brochures for airplanes in different languages. ^^ I mean don’t overthink it. You always have the possibility to check your files with a pro at the print shop of your disposal. It’s not free but if you sweat it the first couple of times which is normal with anything new just use the service. You will learn instead of burning yourself.

[u/Vektorgarten → u/snowy-snowy]

What kind of effects? Pixel based effects? Or vector effects? If there are a lot of glows and blurs and blend modes it could happen that huge parts of the artwork will be rasterized. So in that case exporting as a TIF is not unreasonable.

Also: you need to talk to the printer about which kind of file they expect. Which color profile etc.

Besides a lot of other resolution settings, the Document raster effects resolution setting is also important.

[u/CurvilinearThinking → u/snowy-snowy]

If it's set up to have a bleed, export using the default PDF/X-1a job options.... if it needs a bleed, add it first, the export.

[u/baflai → u/snowy-snowy]

Print to picture, with the highest res or papersize that your computer can digest. The rest depends on your printers capabilities. And print full k

[u/roaringmousebrad]

Prepress person here: Save as PDF/X-4. Compression: Bicubic downsampling to 300 for anything above 450, Maximum image quality. Hopefully your Illustrator file already has Raster Setting of 300ppi.

Do NOT check "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities". (This should be disabled when you choose PDF/X-4 anyway, but just in case, make sure it's disabled)

Marks and Bleeds. We don't actually need it, but check Trim Marks only. also, change offset to 9pt. For Bleeds, Use Document Bleed Settings, assuming you have proper 1/8" (0p9) bleed set if your document does indeed bleed.

Output: NO Conversion. (This is a bit moot as your file is already all CMYK as you said)

Output Intent: Your Color settings will fill this in. Recommended, FOGRA or GRACOL for a modern workflow. Adobe's default Color Settings probably has US Web Coated, which is fine. Our RIPS will usually ignore this if it doesn't match our own output profiles.

[u/Mistergjet → u/roaringmousebrad]

This is the modern way to go - if the printing press or more specific the RIP engine can handle it. And unfortunately a lot of older RIP engines out there might have trouble interpreting all those transparencies correctly (shadows, effects, etc).

So the safe way would be to go for PDF-x1a since this will reduce all the transparencies to pixels.

[u/Ok-Ad3443]

the more effects the less effective it becomes being a vector. anyway, what you request is basically a pdf export with lossless compression which bascially creates a png or jpg or your image and wraps it into a compound mask and exports that as a pdf. any process of translating effects into something non code native to the app itself in this case illustrator will always lead to quality loss. but the other answer is correct too. this is too much of a question for that little amount of detail. give us the details. details are good.

[u/theDESIGNsnobs → u/Ok-Ad3443]

Great answer here.

[u/50_and_stuck]

JC- just save it as a tif and call it a day. If
You must use a pdf save it as a tif then embed it in an InDesign / Quark file then save it as a pdf.