Some friendly prepress advice...

[Hexabuzz]

Last night we received a file done entirely in AI, with just a few lines of type on a path, and a background consisting of about 40 circles of varying sizes, each with a drop shadow. Document size was fairly large, about 24" x 36".

Please, please, PLEASE remember to change your Document Raster Effects settings to at least Medium (and preferably High) resolution, or remind your printer to do so... I can't tell you how many files we get where people ignore this completely, and one of these days, someone in the shop is going to miss checking this, and the effects are going to look crappy and pixelated... As much as we try to check and fix everything, it is ultimately the responsibility of the designer for correct file prep...

Also, keep in mind that changing the Raster effects settings can be brutal on file sizes - what started out as about a 4 meg file ballooned up to about 1.6 Gig, and took about 20 minutes on a fast G5 to process the new settings... I eventually just flattened transparency on the file to get it back to a more manageable size...

Thanks for listening...

Dave

[TORCH511]

Good advice. And while I do not have to deal with raster effects here all to often, we get a wide assortment of other issues to deal with on a regular basis. From weird fonts from a $5 CD of 20,000 fonts not outlined, to impossible bleeds.

I do wish that we had a policy like you do that if a customer supplies print-ready art in order to avoid an art charge, then if there should be a mistake in the art then the customer is responsible. Believe it or not, we typically will eat the cost of the bad parts, fix the artwork, make new film, plates and screens and then re-run the job.

[Jodi Frye]

Between this post and the other extensive thread on this subject... one word; ' Guidelines ' ... are the artists/companies given guidelines(depending on which software is used) before submitting work ?

[jkrayer]

Better yet do they ask for them from the service provider?

I've worked in Print, Pre-Press and design and I completely agree that it's incumbent upon the designer to design technically correct as well as aesthetically correct art.

However many don't know the first thing. Many are also old enough to remember or have worked at big enough companies where design and pre-press are totally separate fields/departments. So they think that it's their job to do pretty and someone else's job to do correct. (Yes Ms. Art Director you should have told So and So 3 weeks ago that the cell phone head shot they sent in is not acceptable for print. No, you should have known or you should have asked.) They have failed to see or are ignoring the fact that the fancy hunk of machinery sitting on their desk has caused a shift in their industry and placed more responsibility for technically correct on themselves and less on service providers.

On the other hand I've worked with wonderfully forthcoming print shops that will tell me when my files are wrong and advise me as how to fix them. And I've worked with people who never go back to the client and tell them they've done something wrong, or even ask a clarifying question. So how can a designer learn?

And I've worked for people who see the computer as a way of making their in-house artists show them every half-baked idea they come up with and when they see something they want, they want it now and they really don't understand why you have to do something crazy like call the printer and find out what it will cost, or prep-files, or why there's a 10 day lead time or even why you didn't get all these tips you needed in the first place. And polite explanations that if you bid out every one of their dumb ideas no one would want to bother with the occasional jobs you actually send out for print just don't seem to sink in.

That's it! I'm going into sanitation! :D

[jkrayer]

Stupid double post. ;)

[warking@mac.com]

From another angle.

There are two sides of the brain and both need each other.

If designers had technical knowledge of the printing end it would be great. They often don't, BUT if they did, who would need anything more than a monkey to click print at a prepress shop? I'm not saying they shouldn't know, but it does make the people at the printing places that much stronger and "NEEDED"

I beleive a designer must be free to go where they feel and it is the technical guy/gal who has to work their ideas into workable files. If designers worked from the books supplied by programs and did not stretch the skills of the technical person, we would all still be drawing square and circles with solid fill colors.

[TORCH511]

Well said Warking.

[dirtbomb]

On the other hand I've worked with wonderfully forthcoming print shops that will tell me when my files are wrong and advise me as how to fix them. And I've worked with people who never go back to the client and tell them they've done something wrong, or even ask a clarifying question. So how can a designer learn?

The last couple of years I have worked in an ad agency (publishing before that with an in house printing operation) and it is like pulling teeth to get an Account Executive to find out specs I need to set files up right, especially when they involve Illustrator. They either act like I'm asking them to go way beyond the call of duty to find out for me or they have no idea what they are asking the printer or how to relay the information so things get screwed up. Even harder is to get them to just let me have the printer's contact information so I can speak to them directly.

Is this common in an agency environment? I'd like to know. Very frustrating.

[semimoto]

Between this post and the other extensive thread on this subject... one word; ' Guidelines ' ... are the artists/companies given guidelines(depending on which software is used) before submitting work ?


right,i have yet to get anything that i submit done right in the area that i live in, im not some sprawling mega company w/ thousands of print jobs involving an army of peons to work through, i do brochures, photography,certificates and buisness cards, but to date no one has printed my work to any thing like precision.
Could you guys that are subjected to inferior submissions P L E A S E..
Draw up a check list for the rest of us, the monkey's here are asleep at the switch, i dont want my end of the work flow to be the bottle neck.
thanks and thanks.

[semimoto]

[QUOTE=Hexabuzz;3766]Last night we received a file done entirely in AI, with just a few lines of type on a path, and a background consisting of about 40 circles of varying sizes, each with a drop shadow. Document size was fairly large, about 24" x 36".

why would they submit their work in AI format, i always submit in PDF or jpeg, i dont wnt anyone jackin around w/ my work, which is the best file to submit?

[TORCH511]

The real question is: Why WOULDN'T you want someone to play with your file?

So far I have yet to see any artwork come across my desk that is fully print ready and it needs some work. Our customers are REQUIRED to submit art files in some sort of editable format.

Rarely would the final print look like the artwork if some level of manipulation were not to take place.

PDF's can be opened in illustrator, even when you uncheck the "illustrator compatibility" option. All that happens is you loose some of the layer information and stuff like that.

Really there are no secure file formats, but there are secure printers that take the proper care with your work.

[semimoto]

[QUOTE=Torch511;4076]The real question is: Why WOULDN'T you want someone to play with your file?

So far I have yet to see any artwork come across my desk that is fully print ready and it needs some work. Our customers are REQUIRED to submit art files in some sort of editable format.

Rarely would the final print look like the artwork if some level of manipulation were not to take place.

there are no compitant printer's here,im sure there is alot that i could learn about printing but no matter how much care i take w/ my work there is alway's something ascue when i go to pick it up, and most of the work i do has multiple changes and my people want to see a printed proof,if the proof is squashed or the wrong dimensions, im the one that has to answer for it, and in other posts ive read about "eating the cost of redo" thats me, i refuse to pass the added expense to my clients, i want and need return customers.
so if i could trust any of the four printers here i would be happy to submit in any file type i could.
thanks for this thread and the posts' , this is good stuff!

[warking@mac.com]

Really there are no secure file formats, but there are secure printers that take the proper care with your work.

Actually there is, I supply files in *(flattened form) with a printout. I point at the print and say, "This is what it needs to look like. Make it happen"

You see, I'm not interested on how you get there, just that you get there. This is why much of my work now is no longer just AI. I want a great final image. The same applies with printing.

If the printer needs to adjust something thats fine, as long as it looks like my printout. When it needs to be changed, I change it.

*(flattened form) With PS files they are flat tifs, psd, jpgs, and with AI files they are flat with all text outlined and all images embedded. If more involved with transparency and blends I tend to export to Photoshop.

[TORCH511]

Semi - I am curious as to what types of things change?

Warking - How you just described submitting a job is EXACTLY how I prefer to get them, and exactly how I give them, however I like to include all text on a seperate layer in text form just in case, though I would still argue that as for as the vector format goes, it is far from secure. And as far as image files go, I used to have a sign over my desk at my last job that read: "I can do anything with a pixel".

You were right on the money though when you said "I'm not interested on how you get there, just that you get there."

And if you want to hear the most idiotic policy. We proof just about eveything back to the customer, however, if the customer submits an error to us (Like they mispelled a word that is in another language), and we proof it back to them, and they approve the proof and the job goes to press and the error is noticed upon recipt of the product... WE WILL STILL EAT THE COST AND RERUN THE JOB.

[jkrayer]

Semi, do you happen to be working with digital print shops? I'd pay the extra to print at a traditional sheet-fed shop but I've worked for people who are more concerned with dollars and cents than good reproduction.

Also have you asked to do a press okay and maybe tour the plant? It would let them know you're serious and you could probably get some polite questions answered. If you've been in the shop and okay'd a job and then it doesn't come out the way you saw it they'd have to eat it.

Not that I think print shops should eat jobs over mis-spellings, that's insane, but poor color reproduction or registration.

[warking@mac.com]

Poor color or off registration is never a sticking point to get the printer to re run it at his own cost. But a client who signs off on their own mis spelled words, should pay all or most....."ALL the re print costs"

Now, I was using a few great printers for all my sign, display, and POS work while creative director at Steve & Barry's University Sportswear. We made mistakes all the time. I always got a call from the rep and/or the pre press director to say what was wrong and that THEY FIX IT! From color to spelling. They never complained and I'm guessing because we were a mega account.

I've said this before. Printers, pre press, and design are all very different and all rely on each others expertise.

Groovy
ToddF

[TORCH511]

You should not be a mega-account to get that kind of treatment. From Engineering to QC, we all try to catch errors. Let's face it, mistakes happen.

I will say that probably our mega-accounts, BOSE for example, do get special treatment. We will do things like absord some of the prototyping costs knowing that we are going to get the final product, and that the runs will be signifigant.

[pseudodigm]

If it's a magazine ad or a poster or something like that, I'll shoot out a high res PDF. But, like for instance, I recently had to design "car wraps" to advertise our game for 5 different cars. The shop was a little...vague on the dimensions but had vector "templates" (scaled drawings of the car models), but there was so much play because of the individual trim options and yada yada, I gave them photoshop .pds with the individual elements in their own layers so they could push them around if they needed to - I ran that past them and gave them mockups to show "this is how I'd like to to end up, please".

This was good and bad, as it turned out. Good because they were able to push things around a bit so that important stuff (words and whatnot) weren't sitting on top of tag brackets and stuff...but bad because they "fixed" a "mistake". I'd made the words on the hoods of each of the cars backwards so it would look right in the rear view mirror (like you see on an ambulance) but...they re-reversed it because they thought it was a mistake.

Anyway, ++ for letting the designer know when we do something stupid. I learned pretty much everything about pre-press from printers that reply to my stupid questions or email/call me to say like "hey, I THINK you meant to do THIS, and in the future it's better to do it THIS way." I mean, hey, there was a time I didn't know what a bleed was and I had to ask a printer. Luckily he didn't get all bent out of shape about it.

[Yaderp]

I have been in the publishing and design business for more than thirty years. We used to do pasteups with waxed galleys of type, and any screens or tints were done either in the process camera room or sometimes at the plate burner. We have it so good now. I have in my shop, in my personal office, more production capability (except for actually printing) than I used to have in a 6,000 sq. ft. pre-press department. Wow, we've come a long way. I can remember that whenever you said Illustrator, you were talking about the staff artist and not a software package.

Cheers :)

[Lukas Engqvist]

Was a thunderstorm that woke me ;). The power of the internet, and networks in general is that it gives you a place to turn when no one else understands the frustrations you're going through. It's a fine line between friendly advice and just frustration rants.

Trust seems to be one issue. And the only way to bridge trust is through communication.
It seems there are as many prepress frustrated at designers who will not trust them and send closed (sometimes inferior quality) files. But there is an equal amount of frustrated designers that stopped trusting the next line of people beacuse they didn't get what they expected (and feel the next one in line messed up their design).
Unfortunately it is also true that those who are least willing to listen to advice and reccomendations are often those that could need it. Those that are confident don't mind listening, may argue, but at least they have good counter arguments.

I use the measure that a customer who can deliver an "open document" that is correct is ripe to deliver print ready PDF. If they deliver a PDF we do not expect to do anything after the proof. If they cannot deliver a correct open document they will not be able to deliver print ready PDFs. If all is correct then ofcourse it doesn't matter which they send, but if there are technical flaws I'd rather deal with the open file.

[Jrhough1]

I agree and sympathize with the points mentioned in the above posts. In the last few years I've been involved with jobs that go to print and as such I'm eager to supply my printer with as close to 'print-ready' files as I can - for my benefit and theirs- since it's always good to work with people that make your life easier not harder.

Even with good intentions, it is often best left to the printer to do certain things to your file, since ultimately they know more than me and I often try to communicate upfront with them. As I do these jobs, I become more educated due to issues that crop up and that's something I enjoy.

As a photographer, I have a basic grasp of a color-manged workflow, but sometimes being asked, by printers, to convert my files to "CMYK" is frustrating (and alarming) since they are often not specific in supplying a profile for their press or some cannot even tell me whether to use Webcoated or Sheetfed Coated as my CMYK target space. I learned that it's best to search for a printer that is more savvy and understands my predicament. If I use NAPrepress defaults, I'll be in the ballpark, but I want to optimize my images to the full and sometimes using the 'generic' approach may sacrifice quality.

These days, in the advent of desk-top publishing many companies are asking employees to become 'designers' and do 'in-house' stuff and they have no idea of the limitations of the printing processes, whether flexo-graphic or offset-lithography, two vastly different processes that have inherent design issues when going to print.

As a designer, I feel it is my responsibility to be knowledgeable about where my designs are intended to go before, and after , I start them. having a basic pre-press knowledge is part of my respsonsibility since it will make the jobs go smoothly and keep costs down for everyone.
Talking to printers, and people in these forums is a huge help, since pre-press info can often be contradictory and confusing.

The advent of print-ready pdfs and colorspaces that are required by printers can initially be a minefield of confusion, so any direction to information on the best way to set up a pdf workflow is the best question I can ask as far as pre-press goes, particularly when it comes to the myriad of settings to choose from in any given scenario.

great forum!

JRH