The very first thread

[sallybode]

To Albacore,

The newest version of DRAW X3 can handle spot color in shadows, and all types of transparency with spot color as well as spot color in blends, using the new bevel tool and the mesh tool. And translates this into .pdf with correct spot color too, including to plate. I know, I do it every day. It is a big improvement over 12. However, there are some inconsistencies that keep some users from using X3, but if you play to its strengths, it is a very powerful tool.

Viewing plates is much easier, you get a much larger view, if there is something wrong you can zoom right in and know what needs to be changed.

InDesign like Illustrator has only half of the gradient tools and handles transparency like Illustrator. It can handle creep for long publications and manages memory much better than DRAW, but DRAW isn't in competition for books, booklets and leaflets, brochures, business cards, in other words, smaller publications.

If you were doing the impositions for gang runs on large CMYK presses, you'd be using InDesign.

Quark is losing ground it seems. Even though InDesign is challenging to learn, it is easier to use than Quark. As of yet I haven't used the newest version.

The best thing about Illustrator is its brushes and support in all for pen tablets, it has nice borders. The part that really keeps me from wanting to use it more is in selecting items to edit. The layers palette doesn't really help you locate what you need. It is easier to add to a selection than to subtract from it.

I often get in designs in Illy to have to impose, half of the work is off the art board, which makes doing imposition all the harder. Printing isn't just done one at a time, but as many as you can get on the paper for economy sake, you don't want overlap of artwork as it can cause distortions on the plate. We get a lot of work in in Illy and the part we print in house, is nearly always in need of correction. Colleges teaching the next breed of designers don't teach enough about how things are printed to make work coming in at all press ready. It is harder to do an impostion when the tolerances are not as precise. It is easier to do it by the numbers when you have them always in front of you, when you have little leeway for error, I will do the imposition in DRAW because it trims right. Yes, I can get right on the money at 800% zoom, but it takes more time. And my job is all deadlines. I have to choose what is the fastest program for the job I have to do.

Presses have gripper, you can't print right up to the edge of the paper, if you are having things numbered, you have to allow room as a numbering machine has more potential for error than say a trimmer which is dialed in to be far more accurate digitally. When you have two up, you have to have double the page margin between them so they cut correctly. So I get to fix it. When I notify the customer that the work isn't correct, they often send back the exact same thing. Conclusion: they don't know the difference between CYMK green and Pantone 361, as long as it looks black, they don't look to see if it is 100% black. Very few call and find out the margins we use and gripper margins or to ask for a template. I get in work that is anything but ready to go out, one image off the web, next to another that is 800 dpi. If the designers who are using Illy are proving anything, at least 50% of them need a prepressman to fix their work or it isn't going to print at all. And this doesn't get better with service bureaus either, which kick back work with spot color in it, even in an Illustrator file which they will accept, but it costs $65.00 for them to fix it. So I preflight everything I get in, check height and width, when there are so many problems, you begin to wonder. Yes, service bureaus don't take files from Publisher, but if you are sophisticated enought to use AI, why can't they do it right?

We get in work just a badly from the local college except for one instructor who knows his stuff. We get tiffs sent in in CMYK and they look blue because they want us to print in Reflex Blue. They think I am being grumpy when I tell them we need vector art, because we do charge for reworking their artwork, and of course people haven't budgeted for this. We often end up fixing it anyway but do try to get the customer to comply first. Even in Illustrator we get .jpegs that are supposed to be color separations.

My conclusion: that CMYK is being taught, and that's about it. But there is much that is printed everyday which is spot color and for the smaller printing business where people are striving for sticking to a budget, it is going to remain a part of business. Spot color isn't just another palette to pick a pretty color from.

Yes, there are those who know what they are doing. If it isn't the program, it is the users. But I have to also wonder why they can't see their errors or why they can't check it with a .pdf, most of them have Acrobat Professional. Print preview could show more.

We do a lot of newsletters and they are always spot color. One of our clients send us files out of Quark and they just end up sending us .pdf with all work in black. We've gotten Illy files from the local newspaper in to be printed in like manner because they didn't know how to send spot color separations.

If it is so great, why so many mistakes and by people who ought to know?

My point is, it should be easier to see where the problems are. That it is unclear for the user costs the printing industry a lot of profit.

It is true that many shops turn away artwork coming in if it is CorelDRAW, we use DRAW and prefer work to arrive in .pdf because we may have a slightly different version of the font and it can change the pagination.

Whatever the program, print preview should be better understood. At least when people were printing their separations they knew what their colors were. No one does this any more, paper is cheaper than printing plates, I do it to check that work is okay. As of yet, I have not seen anyone send us a file in Illy that ever overprints a light screen of the spot color. Much easier for the pressman to not have to deal with knocked out type unless it is CMYK, then that is the way to do it. So it is very different. But designers should know, I don't know how they get a degree and don't know what they should. Whether or not you have a postscript printer attached to your computer, it would be ideal to have a separations print preview. It would be nice if the whole world were so rich they didn't know what not to buy next, the rest of us, live on a budget. I don't have a post script printer at home. So if I design at home, I am going to look at it in DRAW because there is a print preview even when my output is to my Epson printer.