The new plant I am now working, a copy shop expanding into offset, has purchased a 5 color, 20x29 Miller which will be arriving in January. We are looking to purchase CTP and a Dimension 425 has been proposed-a 4 up. The specs look great, fast, chem free etc. Anyone have any experience with this machine who can give real life advice, reliability, service etc?  Thanks!

Joe, or anyone who knows the subject, can advice on this issue I posted elsewhere and got very little feed back in which it might not be required because I'm ignorant.  :laugh:



"As many of you know, I'm a printer-prepress person so this thread is to gather info for my boss's client. Here's the question from the client:

"I'm the Webmaster for the WDCGA and we have a photos section on our site, we currently just link to Shutterfly so members can print their own. However, we have been spending the past year digitizing our scrapbooks from each each - we have some from the 30's as you can see in our photo section.

Here's my issue, we have scanned in many other years and instead of linking them to shutterfly, I want to display them more like a scrapbook so users can page through them on the site - and I need it to have zoom capability so that the older newspaper articles can be read. All the pages are .jpgs.

Do you have any recommendations? I've come across several on-line but it's hard to sort through which is the better and easier to use product."

The impression I received was it shouldn't be too costly or over complicated.  Any thoughts, thanks."


The only answer I received, (I'm sure is the correct one, the route I would take but not a tight client) is:


"Well you can layout this in InDesign Cs4 and export it to a Flash file, then you can zoom in by adding some tools in Flash later on. There would a page transition and you can choose to have the page flip like a book.

The only issue I see with this is that you have to have the jpeg images high enough quality so that they're either legible at the size in the Flash file or that when you zoom in you can read them. But this will add the file size and the length of time to download/stream the flash file.

The other way you could do it is to split the scrapbook up into manageable indesign files, and combine them in a book panel. You could make individual flash files for certain sections like "The 1930's" and so on.

You could then also offer a complete scrapbook to download and view on their own computer.

Pretty straight forward and shouldn't be too hard to implement.

The flash file could be presented on their website no problems."



The client has now emailed us info on a program they are looking close at. Is anyone familier with this program? And if so, what do you think and what advice? http://page-flip.com/about/

Thanks all!
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Since all we did was varnishes can someone explain the exact differences of UV and Aquas coatings. Thanks all!

We are placing a bid on a two color job and the specs indicate That "Ink must be a drop-out color." I've heard this before but can't remember the details. The only thing I can think of is a surprint-plate change. Any thoughts out their?   

As many of you know my company just merged with another who uses Dynastrip as its impo program for its xerox copiers and small presses. We will soon bring in a large multicolor offset presses and bindery equipment from the old shop into the new plant. The new plant purchased all of our equipment, computers  and software including preps which was bundled with our defunct, broken Apogee 2 workflow. I've somewhat talked the new boss into looking at preps instead of Dynastrip in our expansion. Does anyone know off hand if it is possible, since the new shop has ownership of preps now (version 3 I think), that we can purchase the new version of preps (upgrades) at a discount? Or would it be better to address this issue with vendors when purchasing a new workflow and CTP? Thanks! 

It turns out the printer we may merge with does not have the ability to trap files. They get the ole Homer Simpson look on their face when I mention trap. I've been working on files from home and posting print ready pdfs on their ftp site. I remember the old days trapping manually with native files but many of the files I receive are PDFs. Is their a way I can trap pdfs without a rip? I don't want to open these files in Illy and trap, for example. Is there a trick like placing the pdf in Indy and use its trap engine somehow to trap pdfs? I do have PitStop.  Thanks!

Anyone have any contacts of someone who specializes in selling used presses? We are looking to purchase a used 5 or six color 29" press ASAP. A Miller would be preferable but not a must. Thanks!

I've got 2 mirror door G4s at home that I'd like to have see each other. My home mac os is Panther, my work computer here at home is Tiger. I do not want to upgrade the panther because my video software will have to be upgraded in which I want to avoid at this time. My home computer has "S cable" and USB hookups, the work computer only has USB hookup. Can someone tell me the best way to network these two together so that I can access emails from both and have the use of both computer's software? Is this possible? Thanks all.

I believe the softproof software is called InSite? Can anyone provide a website that explains it all. Thanks

Unless you need printing, go offshore. American tax money is bailing them out and they then find a way to pay folks in China. The CEO's statement that printer's bids have skyrocketed is simply not true. :angry:

http://printceo.com/2009/04/chrysler-offshoring-catalog-production

I can not stress the stress us printers are going through. In the next couple of years many plants will bite the dust for sure. I was listening to a talk show on the radio yesterday about people having a hard time receiving their unemployment checks after filing and most of the callers happened to be in the printing business. Half of those were pre-press techs. About once a month I'll check out "Poor Richard" website and he has some interesting things to say like always. What I found interesting is the single "comment" (located at the end of the article) that was left by someone who had a bad experience with online printers, and apparently many others too. http://poorrichard.wordpress.com/
I was wondering if anyone else has run into this problem?
In this hard economic climate we are all in, try to work closely with your favorite local printers if all possible to help stimulate your hometown businesses.
Thanks a bunch! jim                This is a post I posted on GDF to make aware of some of the pitfalls of online printers in a nice way.

The Boss is wanting me to design a 3 panel brochure that highlights our printshop. Being that money is very tight does anyone know of a site that provides free or affordable vector and or raster images pertaining to the graphics industry. Thanks

I've got several supplied pdf pages of a 3 color 2 sided business cards. The cards are already imposed 8out with bleed with crops. This job is very large and I'm imposing these pdfs in Indesign (preps died  :cry:) on our 40" press. The issue is the crop marks are separating as 4 color process, not spec'd in any of the spot colors. I need to change the crops to registration so they'll come out in all 3 pms colors. I've checked out the "global change" in pitstop but see nowhere where I can choose registration. I can choose the spots individually but that wont cut it. Any takers? Thanks!

I have 6 11x17 RGB lowres brochures, supplied PDFs . You can see that all was created in Photoshop with the warped, pixalated text etc. I've noticed when I select the image it only selects approx. 3 inch horizontal slices of the page. Looks bad all around. My thinking is these pdfs were generated from publisher. Is there a way to tell what program created these pdfs? I recall reading somewhere textedit will tell you at the header. I did this but no luck. Any one know for sure?  Thanks

This may have been discussed before but couldn't find the thread. I have CS2 not CS3. Told the client to save the 3 files down to a .inx file and now I'm unable to open one of them (other 2 are ok). Before Indy crashes a dialog box appears showing links then crashes. I moved the links away from the file hoping that it was a goofy graphic thing but no dice. Any advice or tricks out there? Thanks!

Good morning, maybe someone can help with this. I have a G4 mac with a 19" LaCie analog display at home that went on the blink last night. Very suddenly the screen went blank, the power light on the monitor started blinking on and off, continuously in rhythm with a clicking sound. I brought the display into work and hooked it up to my work computer getting the same result using different power cords etc. Anyone ever experienced this before, thanks. 

I Just read this morning Quebecor World is closing one of its plants in North Haven Conn. "This is aimed at reducing costs and improving productivity across the chain by consolidating volume in larger and more efficient facilities." My translation to this is Quebecor is moving to mexico and China. I've been to this same plant in North Haven Conn. when it was called NorthEast Graphics, a printer once located in NYC. This is one huge plant, containing over 350,000 sf of floor space. An extremely modern facility and it looked efficient to me, a matter of fact it looked to be the most efficient plant I've ever visited. I'd love to see this new, larger, more efficient facility and the skill level of their employees. 

I've received many pdfs from Pub but not Pub files themselves. Well, I've got one and for the life of me how do you generate a pdf from it? I've tried export, print, save as from Publisher 98 and 2003 and can not locate a pdf feature. Any Pub gurus out there?

This has been a pain for me and it's been in-consistant. When I select the "touch up object tool" and select a raster object to open in photoshop I get this message "Could not complete your request because a color was specified using an unsupported color space". It's a one color, hang and bang, out of word, rgb hunk of junk but I get this message all the time. What gives? Thanks

The last year or two I've come to the conclusion that prepress will eventually be handed off to the client to trouble shoot, trap-overprints (maybe) and impose using interactive software. This pass weekend I got together with an old friend who works for a simi large 3 shift, 7 days a week local printer who is now testing a software package called "Insite" that allows the client to do just that, except it's only for their digi presses which are limited in size-13x19" perhaps. This will be the CSRs responsibility, acting as the go between the client and the use of this software and the ultimate goal is to move this function to their 40" presses. Has anyone ever heard of this "Insite" and what's your take on it. Sounds like a job killer to me eventually and we will all end up becoming some tired salesperson's lackey, aka CSR.   :angry: