Since I work as a system administrator in one small company, which is full of creative people, who, as a rule, understand little in computers, it is not surprising that they often come to me with different questions. The other day I was puzzled by a question from our advertising agent, he did not know how to open the EPS format.
After we resolved this problem, I had the idea to write this material, maybe he will help someone in a similar situation, because not everyone has system administrators at hand.
So, let's figure out what the EPS format is , how to open it and in general, why is it needed?
To date, he has received many implementations. But I must say that the programs created by Adobe Systems: Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, that is, all those in which the PostScript language is built-in, process the EPS format the best.
It should be mentioned here that EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is a rather complicated data storage format, when images or texts are saved using the PostScript language created by Adobe, thanks to this, all printers that support PostScript printing can also print in EPS format . It is not surprising that the EPS format was most widely distributed in various press bureaus, publishing houses and newspapers.
If you don’t have a device that can print in PostScript mode, you better not get involved with EPS. At best, a preview of the image stored in it will be printed.
About the preview, not only the image in vector or raster is packed into the EPS format, but also a low-resolution copy is added, for convenience when layout in Quark Express or InDesign packages. The layout program recognizes the preview and displays it during operation, and when printing, the full version is displayed on the printer, thus increasing the performance of the computer during layout.
Almost all popular programs for working with graphics, both raster (Photoshop, Photoshop, Corel Painter, ACDSee Pro) and vector (Corel Draw, Adobe Illustator, etc.), can save the user's work to the EPS format. But only Photoshop and Illustrator can make corrections to it.
In the beginning, the EPS format was created as purely vector, after everyone in Adobe understood that the development was successful, it was decided to expand the format and add the ability to store bitmap images (Photoshop EPS).
When saving a raster image in the EPS format, Photoshop offers a choice of the extension Tiff, Pict or Jpeg. And if everything is clear with the first two, then you need to stop on bitmaps made in Jpeg.
Adobe Photoshop can compress image files to JPEG format, but this is not the standard type that is used in all other graphics applications. In the JPEG files that Photoshop prepares, there is support for the CMYK color space, and they are compressed much better than "normal" JPEG can do. Thus, an EPS file that does not contain a preview encoded in JPEG will “weigh” less than a similar file in “pure” JPEG.
But there is a flip side to the coin, if you want to do the color separation of your work, then a file with JPEG compression, packed in EPS format, will not be normally printed on the printer. When you try to print it, it will come out entirely on one (first, as a rule) print. This can be avoided if you do it on professional equipment, but simple PostScript printers will not be able to cope with this task. So in those cases when you want to print files that use the EPS format for printing, take an interest first in what mode the raster was saved. If you are answered that in JPEG - it would be nice to check with those who will print such a file for you if their equipment can work with such a cunning format.
Now that you know what EPS is and what it is eaten with, I hope that your computer life becomes a little easier.