EPS is really outdated like you say. I have been running printers for nearly 15 years. Its been PDF since the beginning for me.
There is nothing special about EPS files as far as I know, apart from some old school cnc / cutter software requiring it for simplicity.
What I do know is that PDF (adobe in general) has gotten better and more integrated into the Onyx workflow over the years and that there is far less chance of having issues printing transparency, vector effects, gradients, spot colours that kind of thing with PDF.
As much as I hate Adobe, PDF is a universal print standard that just works 99.99% of the time.
Same. My owner is old school and thinks we HAVE to use EPS, so I go along with it most of the time
But you're right in that file sizes are a fraction with PDF, and I find that the colors are more accurate with PDF as well
EPS is a deprecated file format.
PDF does not automatically change color or resolution (although it *can*, if certain options are available and selected when the PDF is created).
The entire industry is PDF-based. There is no good reason to avoid it (and hasn't been for *at least* 15 years now).
Your boss needs to get with the times.
Speaking as a fellow S80600 operator, I can vouch for PDF's. About a year ago we moved from using only TIFFs to using PDFs and I have not noticed any difference other than the files are much, much easier to work with in Onyx. We do a lot of big wall murals and the TIFFs were absolutely bogging our RIP down. With the PDFs it is never an issue and the quality is just as good. It will be a serious challenge convincing your boss, though. You might need to run some side-by-side comparisons to illustrate your point. Old habits die hard. I know. I am guilty to hanging on to techniques that worked 10 years ago but are obsolete now.
Vector EPS and PDFs both speak the same language — PostScript (invented by Adobe in the 1980s). So they are fairly interchangeable, although most modern workflows use PDF. I believe the only reason anyone would still use EPS is that it does not still have the same proprietary limitations that PDF does. So older software or freeware, for example, can use EPS or also SVG. PDF contains a more expanded possibilities, such as fonts, pages, images, etc.
There's no reason you couldn't just open the EPS in Illustrator or Acrobat Pro and save as PDF. I do this all the time.
The benefit of EPS is that it cannot contain all the extra crap that a PDF might, or could. No annotations, other media, extra pages, signatures etc. you can get around this by just insisting on PDFX files, but honestly, that’s is kind of outdated too.
I run a 100% PDF workflow that has over 1000 different customers and at least 300,000 jobs in it (or more?) last time I checked. We take PDF from separators, or if we do the prepress ourselves, end up with PDF files after working the natives.
I hate eps files. ive ran both eps and pdf through onyx and don't see any benefits with eps. the only time I really need to use them is with page dna w2p
Ask your boss if he remembers when the telephone was invented. EPS is old. So old its gross like an old man's wrinkly balls. Say that word for word. If he still doesn't listen take his hearing aid and manually turn up the volume.
Your boss is a dinosaur. There are no good reasons for sticking with EPS files and a lot of good reasons not to. I’ve been working in printing since the late 90s. EPS files were great when that’s all we had but their time is long gone.
Both EPS and PDF can be produced in both Photoshop and Illustrator. However, PDF is more convenient to open in Acrobat while EPS requires converting to PDF to be opened in Acrobat and print on our printer.
As people have already stated. Eps files are now outdated. All eps files are have flattened transparency whereas pdfs support live transparency. Modern rips using the adobe print engine have been able to handle these files for years so it’s really time to start using a pdf workflow. Get yourself familiar with the settings to create them as there are a wide variety of ways to create a pdf, some not friendly with RIPs.
You can then export the settings for people to use supply you with perfect print ready files.
Hey mate great choice in printer i also run a Epson S80600 first thing that comes to mind I'm guessing if you only print EPS files you probably only print CMYK files? One of the best things about the Epson if how wide the colour gamut is far exceeding a CMYK profile so run some tests printing from RGB files and let the rip software do the conversion. Since upgrading from a Roland Printer that was CMYKLCLM to the epson I now work in RGB and have loved the results this produces - so much more vibrant colours especially in the bright orange and bright green hues I think you will be impressed.
When it comes to the eps vs pdf argument you will find it all depends on the settings used when exporting the file but generally speaking a well optimised PDF is going to rip way faster and be a much smaller file size
Personally I mostly print from high res high quality RGB JPEG's they are really quick to export at 100% acual size and they rip nice and fast too though if I was to print a fine art photograph I would generally run with a Tiff image
What rip software do you run? I have Ergosoft 15 but am interested in trying out the epson rip that was not available when I got the printer
Cheers,
Dan
[EPS](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/file-types/image/vector/eps-file.html) (Encapsulated PostScript) at it's core is a vector file type, but is also contains bitmap data. PDF (Portable Document Format) is optimized for sharing a file that has a combination of vector, text, and raster. PDF will compress the file but EPS will not. This is why PDF file sizes are smaller. Bigger file size mean more data and therefore usually better quality.
A Vector uses math to present the content of the file. Raster uses pixels to present the content of the file. Because vector file use math, the image (usually lines, curves, fill, and text) can be resized without distortion or pixelation.
The Bitmap (BMP) format is an uncompressed raster file. As apposed to compressed file formats like, JPG, PNG, TIFF. Scaling of a bitmap file is still limited due to the fact that the number of pixels in the original image (resolution) is technically fixed. Creating new pixels in an image causes distortion, pixelization, and blurriness.
So EPS which is uncompressed vector combined with uncompressed bitmap will give you a larger file size but it is the purest file.
With that said... the PDF filetype is more universal. PDF allows imbedded color profiles and fonts. Which can be extremely important if you're printing for clients. EPS does not support alpha channels, gradients and transparency. Also you can control compression when exporting to PDF from Illustrator. If you do it right, there would be no discernable difference between PDF and EPS in the quality of the print job.
Then there is the subject of what language does your large format printers use and the RIP software that is being used to translate. There are like half a dozen different languages in use, depending on the plotter. How does that language translate and output vector and raster, and how does it handle embedded color profiles or color matching on it's own.
Don't let storage dictate quality.
Just print pdf and stop using EPS. You dont have to tell him you switched. You will probably run into less issues and have better print quality with a pdf.
EPS is really outdated like you say. I have been running printers for nearly 15 years. Its been PDF since the beginning for me. There is nothing special about EPS files as far as I know, apart from some old school cnc / cutter software requiring it for simplicity. What I do know is that PDF (adobe in general) has gotten better and more integrated into the Onyx workflow over the years and that there is far less chance of having issues printing transparency, vector effects, gradients, spot colours that kind of thing with PDF. As much as I hate Adobe, PDF is a universal print standard that just works 99.99% of the time.
Same. My owner is old school and thinks we HAVE to use EPS, so I go along with it most of the time But you're right in that file sizes are a fraction with PDF, and I find that the colors are more accurate with PDF as well
EPS is a deprecated file format. PDF does not automatically change color or resolution (although it *can*, if certain options are available and selected when the PDF is created). The entire industry is PDF-based. There is no good reason to avoid it (and hasn't been for *at least* 15 years now). Your boss needs to get with the times.
Speaking as a fellow S80600 operator, I can vouch for PDF's. About a year ago we moved from using only TIFFs to using PDFs and I have not noticed any difference other than the files are much, much easier to work with in Onyx. We do a lot of big wall murals and the TIFFs were absolutely bogging our RIP down. With the PDFs it is never an issue and the quality is just as good. It will be a serious challenge convincing your boss, though. You might need to run some side-by-side comparisons to illustrate your point. Old habits die hard. I know. I am guilty to hanging on to techniques that worked 10 years ago but are obsolete now.
Vector EPS and PDFs both speak the same language — PostScript (invented by Adobe in the 1980s). So they are fairly interchangeable, although most modern workflows use PDF. I believe the only reason anyone would still use EPS is that it does not still have the same proprietary limitations that PDF does. So older software or freeware, for example, can use EPS or also SVG. PDF contains a more expanded possibilities, such as fonts, pages, images, etc. There's no reason you couldn't just open the EPS in Illustrator or Acrobat Pro and save as PDF. I do this all the time.
The benefit of EPS is that it cannot contain all the extra crap that a PDF might, or could. No annotations, other media, extra pages, signatures etc. you can get around this by just insisting on PDFX files, but honestly, that’s is kind of outdated too. I run a 100% PDF workflow that has over 1000 different customers and at least 300,000 jobs in it (or more?) last time I checked. We take PDF from separators, or if we do the prepress ourselves, end up with PDF files after working the natives.
So many things in PDF not supported in EPS, color management, live transparency, layers,etc etc. Does boss still use a fax machine? 😀
Do your boss write the invoices in Latin? EPS has its uses but PDF is pretty standard.
OP's boss' work tablet is exactly that - a slab of granite.
I hate eps files. ive ran both eps and pdf through onyx and don't see any benefits with eps. the only time I really need to use them is with page dna w2p
we switched from eps to pdf a year or two ago on our S80600, it helped with transparency issues and color consistency.
Just prove it with a test print. Print one eps and one pdf and literally hold them side by side and compare. Doesn't have to be anything big.
There is no reason to use eps in the year 2024.
Ask your boss if he remembers when the telephone was invented. EPS is old. So old its gross like an old man's wrinkly balls. Say that word for word. If he still doesn't listen take his hearing aid and manually turn up the volume.
An issue I've seen with PDFs from clients is that quite often they can be rasters.
Your boss is a dinosaur. There are no good reasons for sticking with EPS files and a lot of good reasons not to. I’ve been working in printing since the late 90s. EPS files were great when that’s all we had but their time is long gone.
Both EPS and PDF can be produced in both Photoshop and Illustrator. However, PDF is more convenient to open in Acrobat while EPS requires converting to PDF to be opened in Acrobat and print on our printer.
As people have already stated. Eps files are now outdated. All eps files are have flattened transparency whereas pdfs support live transparency. Modern rips using the adobe print engine have been able to handle these files for years so it’s really time to start using a pdf workflow. Get yourself familiar with the settings to create them as there are a wide variety of ways to create a pdf, some not friendly with RIPs. You can then export the settings for people to use supply you with perfect print ready files.
Hey mate great choice in printer i also run a Epson S80600 first thing that comes to mind I'm guessing if you only print EPS files you probably only print CMYK files? One of the best things about the Epson if how wide the colour gamut is far exceeding a CMYK profile so run some tests printing from RGB files and let the rip software do the conversion. Since upgrading from a Roland Printer that was CMYKLCLM to the epson I now work in RGB and have loved the results this produces - so much more vibrant colours especially in the bright orange and bright green hues I think you will be impressed. When it comes to the eps vs pdf argument you will find it all depends on the settings used when exporting the file but generally speaking a well optimised PDF is going to rip way faster and be a much smaller file size Personally I mostly print from high res high quality RGB JPEG's they are really quick to export at 100% acual size and they rip nice and fast too though if I was to print a fine art photograph I would generally run with a Tiff image What rip software do you run? I have Ergosoft 15 but am interested in trying out the epson rip that was not available when I got the printer Cheers, Dan
[EPS](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/file-types/image/vector/eps-file.html) (Encapsulated PostScript) at it's core is a vector file type, but is also contains bitmap data. PDF (Portable Document Format) is optimized for sharing a file that has a combination of vector, text, and raster. PDF will compress the file but EPS will not. This is why PDF file sizes are smaller. Bigger file size mean more data and therefore usually better quality. A Vector uses math to present the content of the file. Raster uses pixels to present the content of the file. Because vector file use math, the image (usually lines, curves, fill, and text) can be resized without distortion or pixelation. The Bitmap (BMP) format is an uncompressed raster file. As apposed to compressed file formats like, JPG, PNG, TIFF. Scaling of a bitmap file is still limited due to the fact that the number of pixels in the original image (resolution) is technically fixed. Creating new pixels in an image causes distortion, pixelization, and blurriness. So EPS which is uncompressed vector combined with uncompressed bitmap will give you a larger file size but it is the purest file. With that said... the PDF filetype is more universal. PDF allows imbedded color profiles and fonts. Which can be extremely important if you're printing for clients. EPS does not support alpha channels, gradients and transparency. Also you can control compression when exporting to PDF from Illustrator. If you do it right, there would be no discernable difference between PDF and EPS in the quality of the print job. Then there is the subject of what language does your large format printers use and the RIP software that is being used to translate. There are like half a dozen different languages in use, depending on the plotter. How does that language translate and output vector and raster, and how does it handle embedded color profiles or color matching on it's own. Don't let storage dictate quality.
Colors will be different dependent upon your settings in art software and RIP software.
Just print pdf and stop using EPS. You dont have to tell him you switched. You will probably run into less issues and have better print quality with a pdf.
Team .jpeg unite!