Home › Forums › Photography Q&A › Printing Feathered Cutouts
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November 11, 2020 at 1:31 pm #55136Blessings CapturedParticipant
I’m designing a calendar to be printed at a local print shop. We’re having a problem getting the feathers on the cutouts to print nicely. I designed the cutouts like show in this video:
https://www.lenspiration.com/video/qacalendarcutouts/Attached is an image of what a cutout looks like on my screen with a solid color behind it. That is how I want it to look like printed.
But this is how my printer describes what a test print looks like:There are 5 distinct shades of the background, all of them in rings getting lighter as they move out from the center, the flag looks good though. Perhaps erasing the background all together, so that just the flag is on the page there, would be better. I think that those definite rings may be caused by the limitations of my machine. One of those new 10 bit color machines could probably blend / fade / feather that perfectly.
Is erasing the background thus making a harsh cutout, the only way to go? Am I saving the file wrong? What should I do for cutouts that that are more of a landscape and not a object? (see attachment of hills at sunrise)
I don’t know to much about printing. Thank you for any advice!
November 11, 2020 at 3:01 pm #55143Ezra MorleyModeratorIf the printer can print shades of color in the flag, then it should be able to do any other gradient. I’d look into your file settings. What format did you send to the printer? JPEG? PDF?
November 11, 2020 at 3:56 pm #55144Blessings CapturedParticipantI sent a pdf that I saved from InDesign.
Attached are some screenshots of how I saved it.November 11, 2020 at 4:17 pm #55150Ezra MorleyModeratorHmm… That doesn’t look particularly problematic. Where are the source photos coming from? How did you create the “feathering”? (In InDesign, or with some other software?)
November 11, 2020 at 4:25 pm #55152Ezra MorleyModeratorI just realized that the video shows using Photoshop to create the cutouts. If you did so, make sure you save your cutouts in a lossless file format (either .tiff or .png) then use that file in your InDesign layout.
@jamesstaddon, maybe that would be a good little tip to add to the video (or at least the description below the video). 🙂November 11, 2020 at 4:33 pm #55153Blessings CapturedParticipantI started out as a NEF in Lightroom > right-click, edit in photoshop> use layers, masks, and brushes to create the feathering > save as tif file > import into InDesign.
November 12, 2020 at 9:35 am #55158Blessings CapturedParticipantThe flag one with a very contrasting gradient(from black to white) looks the worse. But with some of the other ones that don’t have such a contrast you can hardly tell.
November 12, 2020 at 10:14 am #55160Ezra MorleyModeratorCan you send me a sample page that I could try printing on my color printer? I have a Canon Pro-100 professional photo printer, and I’m curious whether I’ll get the same results. (Your local print shop probably uses a “digital” printer, so the results won’t necessarily prove anything, except that your file is actually OK, and that it is his printer that is the issue.)
November 12, 2020 at 11:06 am #55163James StaddonKeymaster@buddingphotographer, done.
@blessingscaptured, that’s tough. I’ve used both local printers and high-end printers and have not experienced this problem so it seems to me to be an issue with the file being sent. He said specifically “5 bands”. I assume this is an unusual situation for him to see banding like that? A couple things to note: if you cut out the flag and added a black background, make sure the background color is not solely a K value; make sure there is at least 10 in C, M, and Y as well. Also, the background black should not be less than 10% opacity, but I don’t feel either of these are the problem.Another thing you want to beware of: the gradient getting cut off on the edge of the linked graphic. See the attachment. Your linked graphics are on top and the edges of the gradients are getting clipped. The gradients need to be modified so they end before the edge of the frame (like the linked graphics on the bottom).
November 12, 2020 at 1:17 pm #55165Blessings CapturedParticipantThank you @buddingphotographer for your help!
@jamesstaddon underneath the mask, the sky is pure black. If I used a levels layer and set the blacks at 10 and the whites at 250, would that help?I’ll go back through and make sure all the gradients aren’t getting clipped. Is there a better way to tell it they’re getting clipped then to use a white fill layer and trying to tell by just looking?
November 12, 2020 at 1:31 pm #55166Blessings CapturedParticipantNovember 12, 2020 at 7:08 pm #55191Ezra MorleyModeratorOK, I’m not seeing any banding in my print.Actually, when I look really closely, I can see some very slight “banding”. I didn’t even notice the first time I looked, so it’s not SUPER obvious, but it’s there.
@jamesstaddon is right, you need to watch out for the gradient getting “cut off” at the edge of the image. I can see a slight “edge” on the left/bottom/right sides where the gradient comes to an abrupt end. (It might be a little hard to see in the attached image, but it’s there, trust me.) 🙂I’m curious from a design standpoint why you opted for a black gradient background for this photo, since the overall color scheme is light? If you can find a lighter color for the background, I think it will work a lot better. IMO, if you’d scale it down a little so that it doesn’t “run into” the numbers, it will blend in a little better too.
Just my 2 cents. 🙂
November 12, 2020 at 9:53 pm #55194Blessings CapturedParticipantSo that test shows that it’s my printer that is not able to handle the gradient?
I’m curious from a design standpoint why you opted for a black gradient background for this photo, since the overall color scheme is light?
My thinking was that since the fireworks are at night, a flag at night would match the theme.
Thanks again for all your help! This is my first calendar and I’m learning a lot.
November 13, 2020 at 9:17 am #55209Ezra MorleyModeratorSo that test shows that it’s my printer that is not able to handle the gradient?
Yes, I’m afraid so. 🙁
November 13, 2020 at 1:41 pm #55212Blessings CapturedParticipantI’m glad we figured that out. Like you suggested, I think I’ll go with a flag that has a much brighter background.
I’m also rechecking for any gradients that are getting cut off.
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