[Dwayne Smith]

Gday

You’re not trying to build the entire document in the master page section of the pages panel are you? (I ask because you mention changing ‘number of pages’ in the master). You create only one or two master pages and create the actual document BASED ON those masters in the bottom half of the pages panel.

If you have your pages set up correctly, then you just need to check your ‘sectioning’ (are there little black arrows above some pages in the pages panel?). Each section can have its own separate numbering. You only need separate sections if you want the numbering to change. Look for ‘Numbering & Section options’ under the ‘Layout’ menu.

d.

[Dwayne Smith]

G’day Christopher,

Usually the first thing to do is trash the preferences : https://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990
Just make a backup first — just in case you need to restore them.

For the first time ever, just last week, trashing just the preferences didn’t work.
So, I had to delete the contents of the cache folder (after making a backup of course)
Like this : https://forums.adobe.com/message/5929012

Hope that helps
d.

[Dwayne Smith]

G’day Kevin

If you’re on a mac you don’t need photoshop for simple image resizing.
See : processing images with applescript

d.

[Dwayne Smith]

Yep — Javascript. Or you might find someone who’s done something in VBscript.
Your best bet is to head over to the Photoshop Scripting Forum.

Good luck with it.
d.

[Dwayne Smith]

G’day Al
Can’t think of a way you could do that automatically with just photoshop.
If you’re on a Mac, I’m sure you could do it with Applescript.
Happy to help you build one if this would suit.
You can find an example of a good starting point here.
d.

[Dwayne Smith]

G’day
You could record an action and then batch process with that.
Open the Actions panel from the Windows menu.
Click the ‘create new action’ button at the bottom.
It will start recording whatever you do next.

the action would have these steps :
(assuming your tifs have only one layer and one alpha channel)
1. turn the alpha channel into a selection (Cmnd-click on the alpha channel)
2. double-click the layer to turn it into a ‘live’ layer
3. click the ‘add layer mask’ button at the bottom of the layers panel
4. save as png (I prefer to use the ‘save for web’ option for this — make sure the ‘transparency’ option is checked)

Test the action on a few files to make sure it works OK (open the files and click the ‘play selection’ button in the Actions panel).

Once you’re happy with the results create a batch process for the rest of your files (File > Automate > Batch)

Hope that gets you closer.

d.

[Dwayne Smith]

Other readers should refer to this photoshop thread for a discussion of Max’s workflow considerations.

d.

[Dwayne Smith]

Yes, that’s why you bring the PSD into InDesign and export from there.
Photoshop isn’t a prepress tool — it’s an image editor. It doesn’t understand crops and bleeds, etc.
PDFs from photoshop are fine for use on screen, or even a laser printer, or whatever.
But for export for offset printing you need a proper prepress workflow.
You CAN export from Photoshop — but you’re not doing yourself or your printer any favours.

d.

[Dwayne Smith]

sorry — probably should have also pointed out that with PDF/X-1a, Transparency Flattener under advanced pdf export settings should be set to high resolution (although I don’t think this affects vectors)
d.

[Dwayne Smith]

My experience has been that type and other vectors remain as vectors through the export process (unless you’ve rasterised them in Photoshop). You will not need to recreate the text in InDesign.

You don’t need to convert the PSD file to CMYK — the export to PDF will take care of that as long as you specify CMYK as your output color destination (which it will be since you’re using PDF/X-1a).

It may look rough in InDesign until you change your preview to high quality (view menu > display performance) — high res image previews slow InDesign down, so the default display is a proxy.

For high quality print you need to make sure the psd file comes into InDesign at an eppi (effective pixels per inch) of not less than 300. So, if your psd is 300ppi, and you import it at 100% actual size, it will be fine. If you have to enlarge it to 200%, the eppi will be 150, which is too low. If you created it at 100% size at 100ppi, it will be too low, etc, etc.

When you export the PDF, set the output compression to bicubic downsampling to 300ppi. The text should look crisp in acrobat and on your proof.

One trick to see what gets rasterised and what stays as vectors is to drag the PDF into Illustrator. It’s easy to see your vectors by going into preview mode (Cmnd-Y on the mac). Don’t panic if things look ‘sliced up’ it’s just part of the flattening process.

hope this helps dude — good luck with it.

d.