I just got my hard copy of the July bulletin and there is a lot of over-inking, which has made the pictures very dark. My copy absolutely stinks of ink. Quite annoying really, as a lot of work went into this issue, and the half tones were prepared in exactly the same way as in previous months.
Hopefully, my copy is not a representative sample from the print run and most of your copies are ok. If the whole run was over-inked, then I offer my apologies to those who contributed pictures that were published this month. My thanks to all who contributed and to Jay Jacobson for his article. And thanks also to my team of proofreaders.
I'm pleased to say the colour version on the web looks much better, even in its compressed form. If anybody would like the colour PDF at full resolution, which will show more vibrant colour, please e-mail me at the above address. The file size is 3.1 Mb.
All the best
Anthony
Printed Bulletin
... though I would never have mentioned except that you did. Still a nice job, IMO.
...or you'll get sloppy edges that'll effect the whole page. really though, the printed bulletin looks great. :) how are you creating your pdf? quarkxpress? indesign? are you exporting directly from the application or are you printing to ps and distilling?
don
Don,
Thanks for your comments. I work in InDesign CS, manually pair the pages, save to EPS and then distill. I've found that gives the most satisfactory results and gives the printer a file that is in PostScript Level 2. Two months ago I made the mistake of giving them a PostScript 3 file, which caused a few PostScript errors.
I have tried exporting directly from InDesign, but with mixed results, and I can't make the Adobe PDF printer work with Mac OS X 10.4.1 Tiger. I haven't yet upgraded my CS package to the newest version released in April, but I'm thinking about doing so.
I prepare the pictures in Photoshop CS and I have all the colour settings the same throughout the Creative Suite.
The pictures in the July edition do look better in daylight, but I was particularly disappointed with the Berkshires pictures, a lot of the SIG graduation shots, the front cover and the LA wax work picture. They look nothing like the half tones I prepared.
it's always best to print to file (we print to ps since eps doesn't always include fonts) then distill. was curious since some previous editors tried to export to pdf (always risky with regard to file size, etc.). we rolled out cs2 at a couple large companies that didn't want to roll out cs (hard to get some managers to understand that cutting edge is usually bleeding edge). the only problem we've run into is bridge not being able to browse networks unless you're on 100/fdx or faster connection.
it's always hard to get good print work for cheap. for what we pay for, the bulletin looks great. keep up the great work!
don
"I hadn't heard that EPS then distilling sometimes doesn't include all fonts. I always preflight the PDF before sending to the printer to make sure it's ok. I will try PS and then distilling to see how that works. I read in the Creative Suite Bible somewhere that EPS then distilling gave satisfactory results and Timothy McCarthy also suggested that route too.
I think you have a valid point about we pay for what we get. It reminds me of when I used to work on a newspaper in London with a really clapped out old press, and the machine minder's idea of improving definition was to ""throw three or four buckets of black ink extra"" into a press that was already saturated with black ink. It used to get two or three web breaks every night, which took an age to clear out of the press. I never knew how we ever made distribution.
My father said that particular newspaper made very good fire lighters, which was not surprising with the amount of oil-based ink that was in it.
It's been quite a learning curve for me. CS has been mostly self-taught through trial and mostly error. But the only way I've ever learned anything is by screwing it up. Before doing the bulletin this year, the last thing I worked with was in 1999/2000 on Quark 4.01 on Macs and the only thing our printers dealt with were native files. I did no page layout in the intervening years."
"...i was doing a search for quarkxpress and saw i never replied to your post. here's an explanation of the quarkxpress/eps/font thing:
Embedding Fonts in a QuarkXPress EPS File (Cross-platform)
don"
