How to export TIFF files w/ better resolution???

[Anonymous]

I had to export some TIFF files the other day and they had very low quality, any idea how to improve it? Tks...

[Karl Ottenstein]

fransole wrote:
I had to export some TIFF files the other day and they had very low quality, any idea how to improve it? Tks...

Could you possibly give us less information?

What where you trying to export - plans/sections, 3D window, etc? Version of AC? Platform?

You will get only screen resolution with 'save as'. If you need 3D, you have to render to obtain higher res images. If you need line drawings at high res as image files, you'll have to generate a PDF and then convert the PDF to TIFF in Photoshop (etc).

Tell us more.

Karl

[Anonymous]

Well, we were submitting a project to the County's site plan approval and they asked us to provide along with the printed plans a CD w/ the Plans & Elevations in PDF and in TIFF formats.
The PDF iwas perfect, I went to Print/Save as PDF and BUM!
But the Save As TIFF from the Layout Book is horrible. Is there any other way to save from the Layout Book in to TIFF format w/ better resolution w/o having to have Photo Shop?

PS.: I am using ArchiCAD11 in a MAC

[Karl Ottenstein]

fransole wrote:
Is there any other way to save from the Layout Book in to TIFF format w/ better resolution w/o having to have Photo Shop?

Not that I know of. Opening the PDF in Photoshop gives you the opportunity to specify the total pixel size / dpi for the converted image - PS rasterizes the PDF vector content to give a very good result. If the sheet contains any images, they'll just be scaled as well as PS can manage- low res will still be low res.

Pretty weird that PDF alone is not adequate for their needs.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Tks!!!....

[Steve Jepson]

Use the Adobe Acrobat Pro.

All you need to do is save your .pdf as a .tiff
It makes a very good quality .tiff

[Anonymous]

SWEET... TKS...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Steve wrote:
Use the Adobe Acrobat Pro.

All you need to do is save your .pdf as a .tiff
It makes a very good quality .tiff

Cool. Good to know, Steve.

I just did this with one drawing to check it out, and found a few limitations compared to Photoshop:

(a) no anti-aliasing, so jaggy edges at full zoom. Or is there an antialiasing option in Acrobat that I missed?

(b) limited output size control - only dpi multiple of existing PDF size. For a case like in this thread, that is all that is needed though.

Thanks,
Karl

[Karl Ottenstein]

Mac users have a free solution: Preview.

When you open a PDF in Preview, you have the option to save as TIFF (and other formats) right there. As Acrobat, you can choose the desired dpi. An arbitrary number can be entered though, unlike Acrobat that presents a drop-down with multiples of 150.

Still, setting both to 300 dpi, the pixel count I got for one site plan from Acrobat was 3300 x 5100 (for an 11" x 17" sheet) and from Preview I got the peculiar 1584 x 2248 (5.28" x 8.16") - which seems to be 1/2 size and ignoring the page margins. Saving at 150 dpi from Preview also gives 1584 x 2248 total pixels ... and would at least print to scale. Definitely seems like a Preview bug. Oh well. Guess I'll report to Apple...

Unlike Acrobat, Preview applies antialiasing to the result. In order to compare apples to apples (lower case), I resaved from Acrobat at 150 dpi to get similar pixel counts. I'm much happier with the Preview-produced result below (which is more like what Photoshop would produce during a conversion) than with the Acrobat-produced TIFF. The antialiasing results in cleaner looking lines and the ghosted walls-below under the black roof lines read better. (This is design drawing, not one for a CD.)

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Thank you Karl!
I loved your suggestion!!!