After reading through the post about salaries in our field it got me thinking: How many prepress managers out there have color management experience/training? I have been working in the prepress department for about 8 years now. Worked my way up the ladder and am now manager (big boss man got tired of paying the manager while I was doing all his work  ). I can troubleshoot a file like no ones business! Trouble ripping the file? I can make it work, adjust customer files to work properly with our outside finishers...i'm your man. But I have no experience or training with color management. I'm learning as I go and hope to make it to some seminars some day (and behind the 8 ball having a brisque from what I hear).

My real question is how many shops have a seperate color management person or outside service to handle profiles/calibration of proofers/plate curves/etc... and the manager is only to oversee flow through the dept?

I want to learn it all don't get me wrong. I get bored if I'm just sitting around watching. But just curious how many shops are the way ours is and don't have a designated color management team.

We don't do our own CM. We contract out.

How big is your shop Joe?

6 people in prepress. 2 large format printers. 2 CTP units and 1 CTF. 2 Nexus servers. All serving 3 web heatset presses, 1 web cold set press and one sheetfed press.

This topic was covered over at PPF many times. There was an interesting thread about using profiles.

CM has never been a huge focus in the shops I've worked in. My experience really doesn't go beyond adjusting color on-screen to be "pleasing", as well as outputting a matching color proof for the press operator to work from.

I worked briefly in one digital shop that really took CM to the next level and had an employee whose sole purpose was to color correct files. For the work this shop produced, it was really overkill.

So, while I am lacking in the advanced areas of CM and I honestly don't know much about handling profiles, it just doesn't seem to be important in your run-of-the-mill print jobs. "Pleasing color" is just that.

You guys must really get it done with only 6 people in prepress and keep up with feeding those web presses! We have 4 people in prepress to feed 2 medium size sheetfed presses and a small hamada press.

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:28:14 AMYou guys must really get it done with only 6 people in prepress and keep up with feeding those web presses! We have 4 people in prepress to feed 2 medium size sheetfed presses and a small hamada press.

thats overkill in my opinion. Im feeding two half-sized sheetfed presses by myself(with room to grow, I only actually need about 20-25 hours/week to stay ahead).   no color management here.

gnubler, I was referring to more of creating plate curves and profiles for proofers and managing gain/trap/etc. on press. But I agree with you about pleasing color. We generally shooting for that as well but have never built any custom curves plates. Just wondering if most shops did that sort of thing inhouse or had an outside service handle that.

But i will check PPF. I'm new to these prepress forums and have just recently found this one. Didn't know about PPF. Pretty cool there are forums out there for us cave dwelling prepress guys   (I say cave dwelling because we have no windows in our prepress dept. Anyone else suffer from sunlight withdrawal?)

Quote from: ninjaPB_43 on January 23, 2008, 11:32:03 AM

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:28:14 AMYou guys must really get it done with only 6 people in prepress and keep up with feeding those web presses! We have 4 people in prepress to feed 2 medium size sheetfed presses and a small hamada press.

thats overkill in my opinion. Im feeding two half-sized sheetfed presses by myself(with room to grow, I only actually need about 20-25 hours/week to stay ahead).   no color management here.

I stand corrected. YOU are the man ninja!  How many shifts run on your presses? We run 24 hours 5 days a week. Sometimes weekends.

I handle 2 large, hungry ass web presses, a speedmaster and a 2 color 19x25 Heid by me-onesy! 100+ plates per day, every effin day!!! The place goes into shock if I take a day off. I ask for help but they won't get any for me. The girl that answers the phone is supposed to help but for whatever reason DOESN'T! I have a gal that does typesetting too but she doesn't seem to want to learn the workflow, or can't!?!?

So what's this "color management"? Is that some kind of affirmative action thing?  J/K

LOL!

Holly cow! I feel spoiled now with 4 of us here. I should start a new tread and poll "how many prepress-ian in your shop?"

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:34:30 AMcave dwelling prepress guys  (I say cave dwelling because we have no windows in our prepress dept. Anyone else suffer from sunlight withdrawal?)

Girls dwell in these caves too! We don't have windows either, and we all blink & twitch when salespeople burst in the room and flip on the overhead lights. The nice salespeople will warn us and ask first.

I call my office The Dungeon.

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:28:14 AMYou guys must really get it done with only 6 people in prepress and keep up with feeding those web presses! We have 4 people in prepress to feed 2 medium size sheetfed presses and a small hamada press.

Yeah, we're pretty busy here considering we only work 5 days a week but the presses run 7 days a week. And the presses still can't keep with us. We've had to turn work away because we just don't have the press time. Looking to replace the coldset press with another heatset one too.

We do our own plate curves here but we contract out our color proofing profiles to someone that knows what they are doing.

Quote from: ninjaPB_43thats overkill in my opinion. Im feeding two half-sized sheetfed presses by myself(with room to grow, I only actually need about 20-25 hours/week to stay ahead).

That's because sheet fed presses are for wussies. Step up to the big boys sometime.

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:35:47 AMI stand corrected. YOU are the man ninja!  How many shifts run on your presses? We run 24 hours 5 days a week. Sometimes weekends.

3 shifts - 6 shifts(8hours) depending on workload. M-F sometimes weekends.   My busy days are 80-100 plates.  My slow days are no plates.     those are the days Im here whoring posts.  Most days its between 40-80 plates though.

Quote from: Aaron on January 23, 2008, 11:34:30 AMgnubler, I was referring to more of creating plate curves and profiles for proofers and managing gain/trap/etc. on press. But I agree with you about pleasing color. We generally shooting for that as well but have never built any custom curves plates. Just wondering if most shops did that sort of thing inhouse or had an outside service handle that.

But i will check PPF. I'm new to these prepress forums and have just recently found this one. Didn't know about PPF. Pretty cool there are forums out there for us cave dwelling prepress guys   (I say cave dwelling because we have no windows in our prepress dept. Anyone else suffer from sunlight withdrawal?)

PPF is the old forum where most of used to hang out. It's read only now. You can't post any new info there.

I have a big-ass window right in front of my desk. I can look out and watch the corn grow in the summer and look at dead corn stalks in the winter. I have to shut the blinds sometimes to block out the sunlight.