Re: importing EPS graphics in FrameMaker

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Hallo:

Color from FrameMaker is better obtained from the Mac because the Windoze
interface interferes with the 4-color process, making it 3-color.

Secondly, EPS is the wrong format for screen captures. Screen captures are
bitmaps. EPS is a vector format. FrameMaker will not give you a dpi when
importing an EPS because dpi is irrelevant to vector images. I recommend you
use TIFF. TIFF has the advantage, in FrameMaker, of retaining 4-color
information, despite the interference from Windows.

Bitmaps, unlike vectors, are difficult to resize. The reason is that
resizing a bitmap adds or subtracts pixels. As a result, the software you
use has to guess what the added pixels look like or how the remaining pixels
should change. For example, a 16x16-pixel image has 256 pixels. Doubling the
size of that image yields 32x32 pixels, for a total of 1024 pixels. Your
paint software has to guess what 768 of those pixels (1024 minus 256) look
like. The result is jaggies and anti-aliased blurring. (You are limited by
the fact that you must start with a bitmap: a screen capture.)

As for the TIFFs looking too dark as PDFs, etc. Consider that when you look
at your monitor you see RGB color projected to you. When you look at printed
color, you see CMYK color reflected to you. what this means is that unless
your monitor and destination printer are carefully calibrated, and that
calibration is maintained, what you see on screen and what you see in print
will differ, sometimes significantly. One way around this is to use spot, or
Pantone colors when you design the bitmaps. However, since you are making
screen captures, I assume the colors were designed with on-screen display in
mind, and not color printing. Are the colors really important?

So, I recommend you use TIFFs for the image format. I suggest you consider
printing greyscale, instead of color, because color costs a lot and will
likely be inaccurate. You might want to print the screen captures at the
size you make them, or live with any resulting jaggies from resizing. You
might want to turn off anti-aliasing. Consider screen-capture software, such
as SnagIt32 from http:www.techsmith.com. Finally, yes, PageMaker (or Quark)
will server you better for this project (PageMaker will resize your images
better, too), especially if it is color (and so would a Mac). Don't forget
to check with your service bureau for their two cents.

All the best.

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Melissa Fisher [mailto:mfisher -at- AUTOMATEDLOGIC -dot- COM]

<snipped as needed>

>>>Here is my situation: I am creating a 4-color reference card
>>>showing +/-200
>>>computer software icons, using FrameMaker 5.5 on Win98. I
>>>
>>>Each icon began its life as an RGB bitmap, which I first
>>>converted to a CMYK
>>>tiff in Paint Shop Pro. In FrameMaker, and in the subsequent
>>>.pdf file, the
>>>icons all appear to be too dark. It is important that I get
>>>a closer match to
>>>the "real" color. So, I tried converting the bitmaps instead
>>>to color EPS, first
>>>using Paint Shop Pro and again using Canvas.
>>>
>>>1- Is there a way to better control the size of an eps
>>>graphic I am importing?
>>>2- Is there yet another graphic format I could use?
>>>3- Am I correct in assuming that if my tiffs look too dark
>>>in FrameMaker and the
>>>.pdf, that they will be equally unacceptable in print?
>>>4- Am I better off just taking the time to convert this
>>>thing to PageMaker?
>>>
@raycomm.com.
>>>
>>>
>>>

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=