Specify halftone screen frequency (Acrobat Pro)

In commercial printing, continuous tone is simulated by dots (called halftone dots) printed in rows (called lines or line screens). Lines are printed at different angles to make the rows less noticeable. The Screening menu in the Output section of the Print dialog box displays the recommended sets of line screens in lines per inch (lpi), and resolution in dots per inch (dpi), based on the currently selected PPD. As you select inks in the ink list, the values in the Frequency and Angle boxes change, showing you the halftone screen frequency and angle for that ink.

A high line-screen ruling (for example, 150 lpi) spaces the dots closely together to create a finely rendered image on the press; a low line-screen ruling (60 lpi to 85 lpi) spaces the dots farther apart to create a coarser image. The size of the dots is also determined by the line screen. A high line-screen ruling uses small dots; a low line-screen ruling uses large dots. The most important factor in choosing a line-screen ruling is the type of printing press your job will use. Ask your service provider how fine a line screen its press can hold, and make your choices accordingly.

The PPD files for high-resolution imagesetters offer a wide range of possible screen frequencies, paired with various imagesetter resolutions. The PPD files for low-resolution printers typically have only a few choices for line screens, usually coarser screens of between 53 lpi and 85 lpi. The coarser screens, however, give optimum results on low‑resolution printers. Using a finer screen of 100 lpi, for example, actually decreases the quality of your image when you use a low-resolution printer for final output.

Follow these steps to specify halftone screen frequency:

Specify the emulsion and image exposure (Acrobat Pro)

Depending on the type of printing press used and how information is transferred from the film to the printing plates, you may need to give your service provider film negatives or positives, with emulsion side up or down. Emulsion refers to the photosensitive layer on a piece of film or paper. Typically, print service providers require negative film in the United States and positive film in Europe and Japan. Check with your service provider to determine which emulsion direction they prefer.

To tell whether you are looking at the emulsion side or the nonemulsion side (also referred to as the base), examine the final film under a good light. One side appears shinier than the other. The dull side is the emulsion side; the shiny side is the base.

Follow these steps to specify the emulsion and exposure:

Marks and bleeds (Acrobat Pro)

You can place printer marks on the page to indicate the boundaries of document boxes supported by Adobe PDF, such as trim boxes and bleed boxes. These marks are not added as page content; however, they are included in the PostScript output.

The options in the Marks And Bleeds panel are unavailable under these circumstances:

• The PDF includes printer marks added using a different Acrobat feature, the Add Printer Marks tool.

• The crop, bleed, and trim boxes are all the same size. The crop box is defined in the Crop Box dialog box (choose All tools > Use print production > Set page boxes). If the artwork contains a bleed, make sure that the crop box is big enough to accommodate the bleed box and other printer marks.

Marks And Bleeds options

All Marks Creates all printer marks at once.

Style Determines the appearance of the marks. You can choose default InDesign marks, or marks from other applications as listed.

Line Weight Determines the weight of the lines for trim, bleed, and registration marks.

Trim Marks Places a mark at each corner of the trim area to indicate the PDF trim box boundaries.

Bleed Marks Places a mark at each corner of the bleed box to indicate the PDF bleed box boundaries. A bleed box defines the amount of extra area to image outside the defined page size.

Registration Marks Places marks outside the crop area for aligning the different separations in a color document.

Color Bars Adds a small square of color for each grayscale or process color. Spot colors converted to process colors are represented using process colors. Your service provider uses these marks to adjust ink density on the printing press.

Page Information Places page information outside the crop area of the page. Page information includes the filename, page number, current date and time, and color separation name.

Color management options (Acrobat Pro)

Use the Color Management panel of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box to set options for printing color. For more information about printing color, see Printing color.

Color Handling Determines if color management is used and whether it happens in the application or at the printing device.

Acrobat color management Enables you to select an ICC Profile that describes the target output device.

Printer Color Management Sends the document’s color data along with the document profile directly to the printer and lets the printer convert the document to the printer color space. The exact results of the color conversion can vary among printers.

Same as Source (No Color Management) Discards all color management information and sends device color to the printer.

Color Profile Determines the profile used for handling colors during printing.

Output Color Displays the output color based on the settings in the Output panel of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box.

Treat grays as K-only grays Select this option to ensure that any grayscale as well as RGB graphical objects for which R, G, B have equal values, are printed using only the black (K) when you enable color management and specify a CMYK profile printing to a PostScript printer

Preserve Black Specifies that pure K-based CMYK colors are preserved as K-based in CMYK to CMYK conversions that may occur when you enable color management and specify a CMYK profile printing to a PostScript printer.

Preserve CMYK Primaries Specifies that pure primary-based (C only, M only, Y only, or K only) CMYK colors are preserved in CMYK to CMYK conversions that may occur when you enable color management and specify a CMYK profile printing to a PostScript printer.

Apply Output Preview Settings Simulates the print space defined by the device identified in the Simulation Profile menu of the Output Preview dialog box. (Choose All tools > Use print production > Output preview.) This option allows you to simulate the appearance of one device on another.