I’m a Mac guy from way back, with experience in both the marketing and production environments for printed materials. I recently had to produce a complex catalog with an eight color cover, including spot metallic with CMYK overprints, a tinted dull varnish and spot aquaeous. Then, I did matching hangtags for product. Both were dry trapped, run in one pass on a sheetfed press.
I did it on a PC running XP pro. Didn’t especially like it, and some things were very awkward compared to a Mac. I had to force things in channels that should not have been possible if it were not for my knowledge of “old” film based color separations.
It would have worked much better on my Macs, at home. But, practical reality is that the economy sucks, I closed my company down due to the economy, and went to work for a former customer that only runs PC.
You deal with the hand you’re dealt. The company is happy with the end result, sales are up over last year and even 07 which is really doing something in this economy, and the printer is hoping for a PICA award for their printing on the project.
So, all in all, not a bad thing. It could have been easier, but it got done.
Now, the photography was another matter, lol. Don’t get me started on trying to get commercial photography quality out of a Nikon Coolpix. Drove me batty. I’m accustomed to a Leaf brick on a Hasselblad, if that gives you any indication. Made that work too.
Printing has gotten very cheap, by the way. How they’re making a go of it at that price is beyond me. I was astounded.
Hasselblad....NICE!!!
Good for you for having that knowledge, cool!
We did a complex cover with numerous spot channels and alpha channels, Type 1 fonts and AI artwork exported as clipping paths, and the service bureau had a PC ripper, for some bizarre reason, and it was a nightmare.
The vendor eventually ended up saying to us “If you do a job like this again, don’t bring it to us.”!
I’m sorry to hear about your company folding.
Printing’s still expensive...we did a job that cost $28,000, done in Medford at a Kelmscott company, and they’re great, their pressman’s the best we’ve ever seen, but then I hear from other folks like us and they rave about how cheap it is to print in Red China or Asia...it’s spooky, hard to say how American companies survive.
See ya’,
Ed
I'd say computer-to-plate has a lot to do with it. Those imagesetters and their film were expensive and time-consuming to work with. IIRC, there's straight computer-to-press now, the press writes the offset image right on the drum surface then starts printing.