Adobe InDesign/Indesign print problem

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Expert: InDesign Pro - 3/13/2009


Question
Hi,

I'm fairly new to indesign, but when I bring a psd file over it is printing a little pixelated.  The same psd file when printed from photoshop or word even is fine.  I'm not sure if I have a setting wrong or what I'm doing.

Please help.  Thanks!

Answer

InDesign's Info Panel
Hi Nicole, thanks for the question.

I have a feeling that you're enlarging the PSD file once you bring it into InDesign.

Whenever you adjust the size of a placed image in InDesign you change the "effective" resolution. For example, if you place a 300ppi image into InDesign and enlarge it to 200%, the effective resolution is half; 150ppi.

To see what the Actual and the Effective resolution of your image is, select the image and open the Info panel (under the Window menu). Also, if you want to see the scaling of the image you must use the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow) and not the Selection tool, (which always give you a size of 100% because it uses the outside box size).

Hope this helps, if this doesn't work, please follow up. Thanks.

Scott

InDesign Pro

Expertise

As a professional graphic designer, I use Adobe InDesign every day and can answer all of your InDesign-related questions. I will give you easy-to-understand and precise answers, along with many tips and tricks to save you time while working on every project. I have spent years helping beginners learn InDesign, as well as helping professionals master the many features of the world's most powerful page-layout software. Thank-you for your submissions. Please include your operating system (e.g., Mac OS X 10.5.x) and InDesign version (e.g., InDesign CS4) with your questions. Thanks!

Experience

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