Aug 03 2012
Look Sharp: Handling Text and Vector Content in Photoshop
Let’s get something straight: Photoshop is NOT a page layout program!
While it’s been true that we could create text and vector shapes for some time in Photoshop, the addition of Paragraph and Character styles in Photoshop CS6 made me cringe—it’s like an endorsement of bad behavior.
I understand that someone who knows only Photoshop might be tempted to create projects with text in Photoshop. I recently heard of a photographyer submitting his files for an 80-page coffee-table book…as 80 layered Photoshop files. As we say here in the South, “bless their little hearts, they just don’t know any better.” But that’s no reason to encourage it. So I see these new features in Photoshop CS6 as tantamount to handing a firecracker to a baby.
Printers, you can now look forward to proud clients bringing their sell sheets to you as ginormous Photoshop files, bragging that they’ve used styles. And then you can look forward to explaining to them why their text looks pixelated on the proof. That’s because, even though text is editable in Photoshop, it’s rendered as pixels, whether you output directly from Photoshop, or place the image into InDesign and image from there.
Without special handling, text and vector content in a Photoshop file is rendered in pixels during output. Not what you want on your business card!
=====================
But wait—all is not lost!
While it’s better to handle text and vector content in Illustrator and InDesign, there IS a way to render vector content correctly from Photoshop.
The trick is to save the file as a Photoshop PDF.
- In the General options, check “Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities.”
- In the Compression options, choose “Do Not Resample,” and turn off compression.
The result is essentially your completely editable Photoshop file—layers, vectors, text and all—in a PDF wrapper. To other applications (such as Acrobat or InDesign), the file is a PDF. But if you reopen the PDF in Photoshop, nothing is lost—the original Photoshop file is there for you.
While vector and text edges are nice and crisp, effects such as bevel and emboss (or the ubiquitous drop shadow) can only be accomplished by pixels. Such content will take on the underlying resolution of the image.
Not-So-Smart Objects
When you place vector content from Illustrator into Photoshop, it’s automatically converted to a Smart Object, which allows you to perform endless transformations with a fresh start each time. So you’d think that Smart Objects would be rendered with vector edges, but they’re not: while the vector reference is stored within the Photoshop file, it only serves as a source for pixels. Even saving as a Photoshop PDF will not force Smart Object content to render as vectors. Counterintuitive, I know, but that’s the deal.
Here’s a comparison of the fate of vector content in PSDs and Photoshop PDFs (click to enlarge).
A comparison of the support for vector edges.
Now that you know how to maintain vector and text content in a Photoshop file, just promise me you’ll use it only for good, never for evil (by which I mean something like a 24-page catalog in 24 Photoshop files; that’s just wrong).
I recently died a little inside when we received a 100-something page annual report for a bank that was due to perfect bind. None of the text was solid black, and couldn’t be changed in PitStop. I asked for the native files, and was horrified to learn that each individual page was designed in photoshop. Then, they brought each page into its own individual InDesign file, where they created a PDF for each page.
So it goes without saying too that each PSD file used fonts that we didn’t have, the client couldn’t provide, and they worked in the RGB colorspace.
And don’t even get me started on the crossovers.
How we powered through that one is beyond me sometimes.
My deepest sympathies! As we say here in the South, “bless their little hearts.” That’s frightening. I understand that if someone only knows Photoshop, that’s the hammer they use to hit every nail. But you’d think they’d know by now that this is wrong.
I don’t know if PitStop can do this, but one approach is to use the Convert Colors option in Acrobat to convert all solid RGB (r0-g0-b0) content to K100. In Acrobat Print Production tools, choose Convert Colors. In the “Convert Options” area (near the bottom of the dialog), check “Promote Gray to CMYK Black.” Actually, it converts any gray-equivalent content to K-only (i.e, r128-g128-b128 becomes ~50% black, depending on the color management settings currently in effect).
Maybe this will help next time. It might be worth investing in a cattle prod, though, just in case.