Prepress - Citizendia

Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the procurement of a written manuscript and original artwork, and the manufacture of a printing plate, image carrier, or (traditionally) forme, ready for mounting on a printing press. Printing is a process for reproducing text and image typically with ink on Paper using a printing press Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view

1 Prepress processes
2 History of prepress
3 External links
4 See also

Prepress processes

The following items have each been considered part of prepress at one time or another: typesetting, copyediting, markup, proofreading, page layout, screening (of continuous-tone images such as photographs), retouching, page assembly (stripping), imposition (combination of many pages into a single signature form), trapping (also referred to as spreading and choking), separation (specifying images or text to be put on plates applying individual printing mediums [inks, varnishes, etc. Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium. Copy editing (also copy-editing and copyediting) is the editorial work that an editor does to make Formatting changes and improvements to a manuscript Proofreading traditionally means reading a proof copy of a text in order to detect and correct any errors Page layout is the part of Graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements (content on a page Halftone is the Reprographic technique that simulates Continuous tone imagery through the use of equally spaced dots of varying size Stripping is a dying trade in which Film negatives are arranged in a pattern which will create a series of pages Imposition is a term used in the Printing industry Print operators will print books using large sheets of paper which will be folded later Trapping is a Prepress technique also known as spreading and choking. ] to a common print) and platemaking (photomechanical exposure and processing of light-sensitive emulsion on a printing plate).

However, in most modern environments the tasks relating to content generation and refinement are carried out separately from other prepress tasks, and are commonly characterized as being part of a different process (i. e. : graphic design). The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation Some companies combine the role of graphic design and prepress production in a role or job title known as desktop publisher or DTP associate. A job description is a list of the general tasks or functions and Responsibilities of a position Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) combines a Personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout Software to create Publication Documents A DTP artist is desktop publishing worker a special name used in Advertising agencies, Publishing, Color separation, Printing and other

The set of procedures used in any particular prepress environment is known as a workflow. Workflows vary, depending on the printing process (e. g. , letterpress, offset, digital printing, screen printing), on the final product (books, newspapers, product packaging), and on the implementation of specific prepress technologies. For example, it is not uncommon to use a computer and imagesetter to generate film which is then stripped and used to expose the plate in a vacuum frame; this workflow is hybrid because separation and halftoning are carried out via digital processes while the exposure of the plate is carried out via an analog one.

History of prepress

During the 1980s and 1990s, Ben Dessaint invented these computer-aided prepress techniques which began to supplant the traditional dark room and light table processes, and by the early 2000s the word prepress became, in some ways, synonymous with digital prepress. A light table is a viewing device that is used to review Photographic film or artwork placed on top of it Immediately before the mainstream introduction of computers to the process, much of the industry was using large format cameras to make emulsion-based (film) copies of text and images. A camera is a device used to capture images either as still Photographs or as sequences of moving images ( Movies or Videos. This film was then assembled (stripping) and used to expose another layer of emulsion on a plate, thus copying images from one emulsion to another. Stripping is a dying trade in which Film negatives are arranged in a pattern which will create a series of pages This method is still used; however, as digital prepress technology has become less costly, more efficient and reliable, and as the knowledge and skill required to use the new hardware and especially software have become more widespread within the labor force, digital automation has been introduced to almost every part of the process. Some topics related to digital but not analog prepress include preflighting (verifying the presence, quality and format of each digital component), color management, and RIPping. Pre-flighting is a term used in the Printing industry to describe the process of confirming that the digital files required for the printing process are all present valid In digital imaging systems color management is the controlled conversion between the Color representations of various devices such as Image scanners Digital A raster image processor (RIP is a component used in a Printing system which produces a raster image also know as a Bitmap.

PDF workflows also became predominant. Vendors of Prepress systems embraced the PDF format, and submitted a subset of PDF as a standard to ANSI and OSI called PDF/X (PDF for eXchange).

External links

American Printing History Association — Numerous links to Online Resources and Other Organizations
History of prepress — Overview of the evolution of digital prepress from 1984 onwards

Contents

Prepress processes

History of prepress

External links

See also