By cyndie shaffstall

LinkOptimizer is an InDesign Plug-in that works with Adobe Photoshop to reduce the size of images by eliminating excess image data, perform essential image adjustments such as color conversion and sharpening, and convert file formats. This handy utility will significantly reduce your InDesign document's file size, processing time, and production costs. If you are archiving files or sending them to an output device, LinkOptimizer provides you a succinct, compact file size perfect for back up, print, or transport.

LinkOptimizer is available for and requires Adobe® InDesign® and Photoshop® CS-CS4 on Mac OS X 10.4.2 – 10.6, it is affordably priced at $239.95. LinkOptimizer 3 owners may upgrade for $95.98. Zevrix also offers users 10 – 20% discounts when LinkOptimizer is bundled other Zevrix products. If the full version is more than you need, try LinkOptimizer Light for just $159.95 or upgrade for $63.95. Additionally, Zevrix offers a demo to try before you buy.

LinkOptimizer is a long-standing popular product, but version 4 provides more than 20 new features and improvements. The user interface has gone through an overhauls and it includes image-format conversion, settings presets, and processing logs.

Quick start

Getting started with LinkOptimizer 4 couldn't be easier. Install the product by double clicking the .DMG file. When successfully installed, you will have a Zevrix menu added to your top menu bar.

Figure 1 When successfully installed, a Zevrix option is added to your top menu bar.

Open the InDesign document.

Choose Zevrix > LinkOptimizer.

Click the new button below the present drop-down menu to save your settings. If you prefer, you may use the default settings.

Figure 2 LinkOptimizer enables you to save your settings for reuse. Click the new button below the preset drop-down menu.

Choose the settings that are appropriate for the intended purpose. If you are creating a document for viewing on the web, you will need a lower target effective resolution that you would need for output to an Indigo press, for instance.

There are five critical areas for your settings: optimize resolution, edit images, convert images, backup and relinking, and advanced. These options give you a great deal of flexibility in the refactoring of images to make them appropriate for your intended use.

Optimizing images

Often you will have used images within your document that are not the correct resolution for the use, whether it be that the resolution is too low or too high. The effective resolution of an image is the actual resolution multiplied by the scale of the image. Ideally, printed images should be about 300DPI, but this depends upon the intended output. Web or preview images are best at about 72 – 96DPI. LinkOptimizer will automatically adjust the image resolution for you during the processing. LinkOptimizer even provides up-sampling features to add resolution to smaller files.

In addition to altering the resolution, cropping a large, high-resolution image can be critical to creating the optimum size document. If you are using a small portion of a large image, it's perfectly safe to crop the image to the picture frame. With LinkOptimizer's backup features, you are never at risk of permanently altering your original image.

Editing images

LinkOptimizer not only provides on-the-fly resolution changes, but further provides editing features. This means that you may selectively alter images, add sharpening, merge layers, and delete hidden layers — all very common image challenges. By way of example, most stock-image companies provide their images in JPEG RGB format. While this format is ideal for compression, ensuring quick downloads, it is often inappropriate for final offset output. Using LinkOptimizer you can easily convert all of the document's images to TIFF CMYK at 300DPI — perfect for nearly any offset press.

If you choose a different file format for your images, the backup and relinking options will ensure that the newly created image is placed in exactly the same position and the document's links are updated. If you prefer, you may make back-up copies of the original images at the same time, thus making the entire process safe and non-destructive.

Convert images

The ability to convert file formats in addition to color space makes LinkOptimizer invaluable. Most output providers have a preferred file format and it seems as though nine times out of ten, it's a file format that you did not use. In the convert images pane, you cvan easily choose file formats to convert from and to.

Back-up and re-linking

To ensure that your original images remain intact, despite your particular needs for this individual use of the document, options in the back-up and re-linking pane enable you to return to the original format at any time.

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