FlightCheck Image Type
The Ground Controls listed below all flag for different types of images. When the Ground Control for a particular image type is set to the Error or Warning state, FlightCheck will flag any images of that type detected in the preflighted document. Below is some additional information about each image type.
Pict – Pict files were the standard for Mac computers up through OS9. Pict files are RGB and do not work in CMYK workflows.
TIFF – TIFF or Tagged Image File Format images can come in many flavors. TIFF is one of the more common high-resolution image formats in wide use in the print industry. Typically, you leave this Ground Control set to Off.
EPS – EPS means Encapsulated Postscript that is pixel based. These are usually files created in Photoshop. This Ground Control is Off, by default, as EPS files are commonly accepted in the print industry.
EPSF – EPSF is Encapsulated Postscript that contains vector data. These are files usually created in Illustrator. This Ground Control is Off, by default, as EPSF files are commonly accepted in the print industry.
JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group, or JPEG, files typically come from the internet or digital cameras and are usually low resolution. JPEG files use a lossy compression scheme, so they tend to have artifacts in the images that may not be suitable for high quality print work.
CT – Scitex Continuous Tone format, or CT, was common in the 1990’s.
DCS – Desktop Color Separation files are also referred to as DCS1. In this version of DCS, there are typically five files, including a preview file and separate grayscale files for CMYK. DCS1 is a pre-separated file.
DCS2 – DCS2 is an enhancement of DCS1 and allows for all separated pieces to be contained within a single file.
PSB – PSB is a large format Photoshop file.
PSD – PSD is the standard native file format for Photoshop documents.
GIF – Graphic Interchange Format was designed for use on screen and not print, GIF files are limited to a maximum of 256 colors and are typically low resolution, so most people want to be warned if GIF files are present in a print job. GIF files use the Indexed Color Mode.
PC – This detects whether an image was created on a Windows (“personal”) computer.
Other – The most common Other Image types are PNG (Portable Network Graphics) and PDF. Many applications today let you place PDF files as an image, and doing so will currently trigger this Ground Control. This is a catch-all for images that do not have specific Ground Controls to detect their type.
OPI – If an image was created by using an OPI sampling program, this Ground Control is designed to detect this. Color Central is currently the only OPI image type detected by FlightCheck.
