shutterfly - jpeg vs pdf

[esther_a]

I just read on a blog that pdf was better than jpeg for crisp text. They were referring to Blurb books. I understand that pdfs keep the text as vector (and it was said that prints at 1200 dpi) whereas jpegs rasterize the text at 300 dpi so it isn't as sharp. Can you upload pdfs to Shutterfly?
I've printed a couple of photobooks before with different companies. Some I did as a photo books using the company's software and uploaded the pdf file. The others were done in photoshop and I uploaded the .jpg images. I didn't notice any difference. Is that because of my failing eyesight or is the difference insignificant?!

[ValerieP]

Great question! Can't wait to see the responses

[shellb]

I have noticed that the clarity of the text doesn't seem as sharp once it's rasterized but I never fully understood why. I've never been unhappy with the printed text in a Shutterfly album. With all that said Shutterfly only allows Jpegs. I never knew that about PDF's. Maybe you should write to Shutterfly and change their policy.

[artmidget]

From what I understand, because of the dimensions of scrapbook LO's and because many people flatten all of their layers, saving the document as a pdf really won't make it any crisper. When you flatten a LO or merge a text layer it rasterizes the text.

PDF's are great if you are printing from illustrator or InDesign because it supports layers and will maintain post script code... but unless the vector based text layer is intact you don't need to worry about post script.

That is just my understanding... I am sure someone with more understanding and expertise of the issue will chime in soon.

[dstnd2be]

I dont think you can upload pdfs to shutterfly.

I think blurb asks that you use PDFs because they use InDesign templates to print. Like Erica said when you print from a program like that it is best to go the PDF route.