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Is Illustrator’s “Convert To Grayscale” Option Press Worthy?
Is it better to convert a photo in Illustrator or in Photoshop…
Is it better to convert a photo in Illustrator or in Photoshop?
I have run some tests in both Illustrator and Photoshop to examine whether Illustrator’s Convert To Grayscale capability is press worthy. While Illustrator does convert the image to grayscale properly and running colour separations demonstrated that only the black colour is used (while Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are not used at all), the quality of conversion compared to Photoshop is not good. The problems arise when using the Convert to Grayscale function on a file that contains raster elements.
If someone wants to convert an Illustrator document which contains raster images to grayscale, I thoroughly reccomend NOT to do it. This is for two reasons:
- Illustrator cannot convert images that are linked. So one has to embed the image into Illustrator and should there be a problem with it when going on press, it will be difficult to troubleshoot the problems.
- Illustrator conversion to grayscale is not as good as Photoshop as I said. The image looses detail, which is retained in Photoshop. So if the first point doesn’t turn out to be a problem, this one certainly is.
The way I would go about it, if I had the original raster image, would be to convert it in Photoshop first. The if one wants to add some vector elements in Illustrator he should import the image in Illustrator, leave it linked and not embed it and then give Illustrator file and image to the printer (and fonts if applicable). If one wants to try, he can embed the image in Illustrator that he previously converted to grayscale with Photoshop, but this last method is a bit risky.
Having said all of the above, I don’t see any problem in using the Convert to Grayscale function in Illustrator if the file you are working with has only vector elements.
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Great… what if you have images embedded in Illustrator you want to convert? Is there a plugin someone can recommend?
I don’t know of a plug-in, however I can look for one and see if it exists. The best thing “unembed” the image and make the conversion to grayscale in Photoshop. Then reembed the image. If you don’t have the original image, then Illustrator’s conversion will have to do. It isn’t totally evil, I just find Photoshop does a better job at converting to grayscale than Illustrator does.
I am not sure whether with Illustrator CS 2 the convert to grayscale option has improved, I’d have to verify it. I can do that if you want.
[…] Currently I we have been having some prepress grayscale issues. I guess Illustrator isn’t particularly the best program to gray things in, says like 5 or more blogs. At least for press that is. I would say the best article on the whole issue would have to be “Is Illustrator’s ‘Converter to Grayscale’ Option Press Worthy?” […]
You can now also consider a new Illustrator plugin, “Phantasm CS”. This gives you a true grayscale option for all object types along with hue, saturation, levels, curves, etc.
For more information, please visit www.phantasmcs.com
I hope this is of help,
Nick
[…] Currently we have been having some prepress grayscale issues. I guess Illustrator isn’t particularly the best program to gray things in, says like 5 or more blogs. At least for press that is. I would say the best article on the whole issue would have to be “Is Illustrator’s ‘Converter to Grayscale’ Option Press Worthy?” […]