Chapters 1 & 2

Chapter 1

1) Then & Now: Compare the roles and responsibilities of a shop (pp. 3 & 4)

There are quite a few changes in the world of the design process from then and now.  Before Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator there was a lot of work to do to get a project from what you want it to be to actual print. 

Before, jobs were more specific like, photographer, typesetter, designer.  Creating a job was a lot more labor intensive.  Now, a designer can wear all the hats.  Jobs had to go through many different people before and they took a lot longer to create.  We don't have to worry about that as much anymore.

2) Describe the following titles and a salary range

Sales Rep/Customer Service: The sales representative is the person you work with 1st.  They will answer any questions you might have about the process.  They will find out what you are wanting your job to look like and on what type of end product.
The customer service representative will be next in line.  They will be the one to handle your project from here on out.  They will talk to the production staff and make sure everything is running right.

Estimator: They are the ones to figure out how much labor, job, paper, and ink cost are going to be.

Preflight technician: They make sure the file is set up correctly.  They use software to check the file or they do it themselves.  They look for anything from misspelled words to a bleed issue.  Also, they make sure the file is organized.

Prepress operator: A prepress operator will do the final check of a file before print.  Anything that might make the document print better, they will take care of.  If they need a picture to be higher quality they will replace it or if a document has a lot of one color in an area they will work accordingly to that by changing out a ink for a better suited one.

3) Discuss the following key terms:

Imposition: Putting the different pages together in the correct order before printing.
RIP (Raster Image Processor): A computer that changes a document into a high-resolution bitmap to be printed.
Trapping: Usually performed at the RIP stage, it creates overlapping areas to minimize gaps between different colors.
Die Cutting: A metal cutter used to cut what's printed into an interesting shape.

Chapter 2

Discuss halftone dots

These are dots that together create an image.  They are different sizes and different widths apart to create different shades of one color.  For instance, to create black the dots are very big and close together.  To create a light grey the same colored dots would be smaller and further apart that way when you look at it as a whole it looks gray to the human eye.

Define the following and discuss their importance:
DPI (dots per inch): This describes the resolution of a printer, imagesetter, or a platesetter.
LPI (lines per inch): The number of halftone dots in a row.
PPI (pixels per inch): These are used to describe resolution of an image.

All of these are important to know so you know what number range you need for each for your image to come out looking its best.

CMYK vs RGB

CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) is what we use for printing.  The printer prints with the four different colors to create many other colors.  They print at angles and are transparent for the other colors to show through to create a new color.  For instance cyan and yellow would appear to be green.  RGB (red, green, blue) is what our computer screens show. RGB encompasses more colors than CMYK does.

Define and discuss Spot Colors

Not all the colors are covered by CMYK.  Sometimes a job will need a special color, such as a metallic, which a spot color will be used to do this.  Spot colors are what fall outside of the CMYK spectrum.

Discuss registration

Since the colors are each printed separately, this allows the paper or the printer to get off by a bit and the colors won't line up correctly.  This is called registration.

What is Rich Black? Why is it important?

Rick black is used if an image has a big area of black to print.  The print shop will need to mix up a formula to create "rich black".  Each print shop is different on what formula they use to create this.

When discussing color management, how do you control your environment?
 To make sure that your monitor is matched closely with your printer and therefore what your end product is, you need to manage your colors.  To do so you need to take several steps:

1. Minimize light interference: Light from windows, lamps, and glares on your screen are going to affect the way you see colors.  Make sure you keep these to a minimum to see the colors for what they truly are.
2. Background check: make sure your desktop doesn't have bright colors that will make you see other colors in a hue of the color you see for your desktop.
3. Calibrate: use a colorimeter on your monitor. A cheaper way of doing this is to use the software on your computer to adjust things.  With every screen you need to adjust it after so long.
4. Higher quality: if you buy cheaper products you will get cheap looking results.  Better quality of inks and paper will keep your image looking the way it should.
5. Invoke printer profiles: Current versions of most graphics software offer color-management controls that make it fairly easy to plug in canned printer profiles when you print.