on 7/11/04 1:03 pm, Richard Kenward wrote: > It's as well to remember that in the past it was not just photographers > who helped keep standards up in the world of picture making. It cost > real money to have good colour separations made so as to be able to > print colour pictures in brochures, magazines etc....the whole business > of producing literature was much more of a serious business and our > customers were more aware of the risks attached to using pictures that > the sales rep took for example. There were the repro houses who would > be the first line of education to commercial customers offering > technically poor quality pictures. Few of them are left now, and now > of course much of the work has been taken over by the print shops, many > of whom are finding life very tough. They have a natural reluctance to > say to the customer...hey Mr customer, these pictures of yours are > rubbish...go and get them re-shot by a competent photographer and then > we will look at your job. No, that is not likely to happen, they will > try to cobble them together and retain the print business.
I couldn't agree more. Prepress is dead. For the big printer it's now nothing more than an icon on an animated workflow diagram. For the little printer it's something that you get the work experience kid who knows how to work a couple of filters in Photoshop to do. Images aren't something to be judged by actually *looking* at them any more. For the big printer they are judged by a computer that simply checks whether the colour space is correct, if the scaling is excessive and the ink weight is within acceptable limits. For the little printer, I guess they have to look at them, but the operator isn't qualified to make an decisions about how to correct or enhance them. That's about it. Nothing else matters. If the image prints then the printer gets paid. If the image slows the production of breaks the web then it'll cause problems. If the image looks crap then the client and the printer can bitch at the photographer because they've agreed to take responsibility - for a laughably small (or no) compensation - for how the image will print. And, just like the DTP revolution, we have unskilled, untrained amateurs putting highly skilled, highly trained people out of work :-( Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that a photographer could be trained to produce a decent colour separation. But they'd have to make a little more effort than I see being made at the moment. Visiting a printer and asking to be shown how a press works would be good start. Paying for a set of wet proofs and studying the progressives would also be very useful. But it ain't gonna happen. Better to sit with your fingers crossed hoping that the "Convert to Profile..." command worked OK, or that somebody will fix it further down the line without making too much of a fuss about it. If you feel that image quality is declining, then any photographer who is creating CMYK images without knowledge of how a press works has got to be *part* of the problem. I get the distinct impression that some people are hoping that a magic ICC profile will answer all of their problems? They're going to be very disappointed. A good CMYK profile will give the equivalent of an automated machine print at best. If they want exhibition print quality then they'd better start getting some hours in - or charging the client more and getting a professional to do it... -- Martin Orpen Idea Digital Imaging Ltd -- The Image Specialists http://www.idea-digital.com =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
