Adobe PDF Print Engine features
Live transparency blending
Transparency effects are part of PDF and essential to modern graphic design. PDF Print Engine blends transparent objects to produce attention-getting print effects such as drop shadows, soft edges, and backgrounds. Even when combined with spot colors and smooth shades, transparency is rendered seamlessly for maximum impact.
ICC-based color management
PDF Print Engine includes the Adobe Color Engine and can also be integrated with proprietary CMMs (Color Management Modules). Job elements profiled with any combination of color spaces are efficiently combined and converted to the intended print condition, per the output profile.
PDF 2.0 color capabilities
New color capabilities introduced with PDF 2.0 are fully supported—black point compensation (BPC), spectral data for spot colors (CxF), and page-level output intent.
Smoother shades
It can be challenging to avoid banding and artifacts when rendering long gradient blends, both axial and radial. With PDF Print Engine, continuous shades are always rendered more smoothly.
16-bit processing
PDF Print Engine processes color planes for images and graphics containing any bit-depth, up to 16 bits per channel, to faithfully render subtle color shifts and achieve absolute color precision.
Built for maximum speed
With a performance-first foundation, PDF Print Engine is the fastest rendering technology for rich graphics and variable data printing (VDP). Rendering algorithms are continually optimized to ensure the fastest output times for complex effects created by the latest features in Adobe Creative Cloud applications.
PDF/VT for VDP
Adobe initiated the PDF/VCT standard to bring the benefits of the PDF workflow to VDP printing. Opaque and transparent repeating artworks can be cached and retrieved in real time. For even faster performance, PDF Print Engine can be configured to cache either rasters or display list objects for each element.
Mercury RIP Architecture
VDP jobs can be output to the fastest presses in the industry with the Mercury RIP Architecture—a scalable, dynamic platform that maximizes parallel processing on multiple, dedicated CPUs.
Tile Parallel Processing
A large surface can be subdivided into tiles, each of which can be rendered by a separate instance of PDF Print Engine. Rasterized tiles are seamlessly reassembled, resulting in even faster performance for large surfaces.
64-bit processing
PDF Print Engine is designed to leverage the capabilities of modern 64-bit processor architectures.
Anti-aliasing
PDF Print Engine can visually smoothen the sharp edges in text and graphics, which is especially helpful at low resolutions.
Halftone origin
Identical units in a step-and-repeat job can be anchored and aligned to the pixel grid to ensure consistent screening and an identical halftone appearance for each element.
Inline image processing
PDF Print Engine can be configured for run-time modification of images using any predefined algorithm and metadata inputs.
Non-binary halftones
PDF Print Engine can produce accurate 2-bit, 3-bit, and 4-bit output for non-binary halftone screening.
Optimized compression
PDF Print Engine can distinguish between images, vectors, and unmarked areas down to the pixel level, so the most efficient type of compression can be used for each type of content.
JDF-based automation
PDF Print Engine integrates with workflows managed by Job Definition Format (JDF), the industry standard maintained by CIP4.
PDF Helper
PDF Print Engine includes the PDF Helper utility for dynamic job configuration based on run-time inspection of incoming files (read-only).
Tight integration with PDF Library
For systems that include the Adobe PDF Library, PDF Print Engine can invoke it at run time to enable real-time modification of job content immediately prior to rendering.
Enhanced Unicode support
Control parameters, file paths, and passwords can include multibyte characters.
PDF Driver support
PDF Print Engine can accept print streams submitted directly from desktop applications via Adobe PDF Driver. It can also accept PostScript via Adobe PDF Converter.
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