The very first thread

[Albacore]

Sally, I think the reason for so many so called designers making mistakes is that they don't send enough items to the printers with the modern laser it is so easy just to use that and they seldom think in CMYK and the separate plates, and with Illy since the intro of CS I find it difficult to make mistakes since you get such a comprehensive report in the printing dialogue in both RGB and CMYK and thats before any preflight.

Don't complain too much about setting up for large sheet printing thats what keep you in a job and as for spot colours thats money in the printers pocket for nothing. Mind you I find hard to believe that folk send you items to be printed and its not even on the Art Board, now that is silly.

I hope tthis forum takes off as Illustrator World at the moment is so limitted so therefore few folk are using it.

[sallybode]

The part which makes me irked at a some of the users is that they don't understand what I am talking about, they resave the file and nothing has changed. I've had some argue that there is nothing wrong with the file and that they sent it to another printer and there was no problem. And if I knew what I am doing, (he-hmm), that there'd be no problem. And then they add, it is solely that I am not using a MAC.

We do end up correcting their file, I should say that I end up correcting the file and send them back the corrected file, so that if they re-run it at a later date, it will hopefully be correct.

We send it back corrected so they don't argue about the extra charge. Yes, you can don't have to print the extra plates out, if you are using red which is 100% yellow and 100% yellow, either plate can be printed as spot, but not if you have a color which is mixed, the result on the press is NG.

And as far as money in the printers pocket, it is the time a job takes, not necessarily the number of plates, the plates may cost as little as two dollars each, so the difference between a three color spot job and four process color job is not that much. It is the payment on the press, if the printer owns the press, but spot color jobs for low runs per unit are about the same cost as offset at high yield runs. And they aren't for gratis, short runs, unless you are using the same spot colors mean washing up the press frequently. All of that time equals labor. It isn't like running a color copier where the set up is the same no matter.

And no I am not being silly about crap on the artboard or jobs off the artboard all together, you have to hunt for them. We have one design firm that does it that way all the time and cannot be told differently.

As far as prepres mistakes out of InDesign, so long as people do not use the tools to warn them about how they are making their .pdf, there are going to be mistakes.

Often a company logo is designed in spot color as it is going on letterhead, envelope, any other stationery, but then is put on a four color business card or brochure. Placing it there doesn't change that it is spot color and the .pdf can be set to change the spot to process. On business cards it is always best to convert to outlines or curves. But InDesign users find it difficult to get rid of the spot color. Even though what they used is converted to CMYK color, about 30% of the time they have trouble with this.

The prepress we run, we don't charge the customer for, normally, and if it were all curves, I could fix their file. We have run the job from CYMK .tif because the InDesign user didn't know how to fix the file.

It saves time delay to view the file in Acrobat Professional before it is sent out, so that if there is a problem, you fix it before it is sent. This goes for output from all programs. Some printers charge as much as $65.00 an hour to fix the file and if the file is fixed by the customer, it is $32.00 for resubmittal. It pays to be careful.

[Availor]

Sally, I dont' quiet understand what's going on with the printing issue there.

In here, I make a CMYK, close it as a pdf and send it to a printer shop. He prints an example with the Aeries machine (or fiery or whatever). I show it to the customer and.... yes or no. I don't pay extra even if I need to run 3 or 4 tests.
I have adobe acrobat 6 professional so regardless of what program I'm using (I even made many jobs solely on MS word since it was all text that someone else started and quit in the middle) I just print that out.

Sure there are mistakes but nobody is expecting such a perfection even in big dimension print jobs.