Prepress - rise of the bureau

[beermonster]

that's when you hear me laughing my fcuking head off! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Chelle]

What Beer said....

[beck]

What happens when you need color adjustments on press?

C'mon, now, that never happens!

Do all your work correctly, and the pressman can hang plates & run with his eyes closed. (They do that most of time anyway, right?  :tongue:)

beck

[andyfest]

I'm not sure how an off-site p/p bureau would deal with small tweaks and colour adjustments off site G-T, esp. considering that we are at least 2 1/2 hrs away from any major urban centre. Maybe the powers-that-be would just close their eyes to minor colour tweaks and just concentrate on getting more product out the door. It's a QC nightmare for sure, but one that is probably happening more and more.

[Joe]

Hmmmm....our company sounds eerily similar to beer's situation. Several years ago, when family-owned, the company invested regularly in new technologies (software + hardware). In the last few of years, since selling out to a corporation, the dollars for investment in technology have dried up. I applied for new hardware & software months ago, after learning of the new requirements for CS5 and am still waiting for an answer, even though our largest client is making the software update soon. I am not sure why the delay - they have to make the investment regardless or risk losing major clients. Could they may be looking at transferring all prepress to one of our other facilities? Although I can't be sure, the technology is certainly there to do the work offsite and feed our platesetter 1 bit tiffs. It's an unsettling thought.....

What happens when you need color adjustments on press?

 :laugh:

People still do that? I can't remember the last time we made a plate over for a color correction.

Unfortunately it sounds as though beer's place has made a decision. Once they do that the size of the disaster does not matter. What matters most is denying there really is a disaster. Corporate will never, ever admit a mistake was made.

A company like mine could be a prime target for thinking like this. We've basically got almost all of our customers to supply PDF's. We make minor fixes and impose. Any monkey could do that for a few bananas. The drawback for us though is we do a lot of weird impositions. It's difficult enough with the in house communication to get these right on the first (or second) try. I can only imagine them trying to convey it to someone in India.

If you think about it though and you wanted to start up a prepress service bureau what would the investment be? For a new PDF workflow, say XMF or Prinergy, a Mac and CS5 you can be spitting out one-bit tiffs pretty quickly for an investment of probably around $200 K. Peanuts these days and you could do it from the basement. The printers would just need a tiff catcher/CTP to output the plates and the print company could virtually do away with their prepress staff completely. I know in our case if the pressmen had to have a new plate and it was the middle of the night it is no problem to pull the job and wait until the daytime for a new file. They have oodles of other jobs they can stick on and run until the new plate file would arrive. The weekly jobs could be a fly in the ointment here.

[G_Town]

Hmmmm....our company sounds eerily similar to beer's situation. Several years ago, when family-owned, the company invested regularly in new technologies (software + hardware). In the last few of years, since selling out to a corporation, the dollars for investment in technology have dried up. I applied for new hardware & software months ago, after learning of the new requirements for CS5 and am still waiting for an answer, even though our largest client is making the software update soon. I am not sure why the delay - they have to make the investment regardless or risk losing major clients. Could they may be looking at transferring all prepress to one of our other facilities? Although I can't be sure, the technology is certainly there to do the work offsite and feed our platesetter 1 bit tiffs. It's an unsettling thought.....

What happens when you need color adjustments on press?

 :laugh:

People still do that? I can't remember the last time we made a plate over for a color correction.

Unfortunately it sounds as though beer's place has made a decision. Once they do that the size of the disaster does not matter. What matters most is denying there really is a disaster. Corporate will never, ever admit a mistake was made.

A company like mine could be a prime target for thinking like this. We've basically got almost all of our customers to supply PDF's. We make minor fixes and impose. Any monkey could do that for a few bananas. The drawback for us though is we do a lot of weird impositions. It's difficult enough with the in house communication to get these right on the first (or second) try. I can only imagine them trying to convey it to someone in India.

If you think about it though and you wanted to start up a prepress service bureau what would the investment be? For a new PDF workflow, say XMF or Prinergy, a Mac and CS5 you can be spitting out one-bit tiffs pretty quickly for an investment of probably around $200 K. Peanuts these days and you could do it from the basement. The printers would just need a tiff catcher/CTP to output the plates and the print company could virtually do away with their prepress staff completely. I know in our case if the pressmen had to have a new plate and it was the middle of the night it is no problem to pull the job and wait until the daytime for a new file. They have oodles of other jobs they can stick on and run until the new plate file would arrive. The weekly jobs could be a fly in the ointment here.

We do to many remakes here for prep to be outsourced not to mention the fact that the pressroom can't run a job from a month ago and have it match.

[tapdn]

waddya rekon my hourly rate should be when the phone rings asking for help?

1£=1.4 dollas U.S. approx

i was thinking about £150 per hour

I ask what the problem is and charge accordingly. I don't have set rates, but minimum $75 per hour. For my area that equates to about 100 quid an hour.

[jimking]

100 squids?  :laugh:

[andyfest]

We do to many remakes here for prep to be outsourced not to mention the fact that the pressroom can't run a job from a month ago and have it match.
[/quote]

And that's the reason that we are probably still here too - quick-turnaround re-runs!

[beck]

waddya rekon my hourly rate should be when the phone rings asking for help?

1£=1.4 dollas U.S. approx

i was thinking about £150 per hour

I ask what the problem is and charge accordingly. I don't have set rates, but minimum $75 per hour. For my area that equates to about 100 quid an hour.

How many Shillings is that?

beck

[Captain_Type]

Two bob, three quid, and one for the govna'.

[Captain_Type]

Unless, of course, Bob's yer uncle.

[tapdn]

thinking a quid is one British Sterling Pound.
 :embarrassed: if I am wrong

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I'm all for it. I'd go back in a second.

[Joe]

I'm all for it. I'd go back in a second.

At minimum wage?