Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
- Subject: Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
- From: Andrew Rodney <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 14:56:53 -0700
- Thread-topic: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
On 1/6/07 2:22 PM, "Martin Orpen" wrote:
> That's about the *falsest* dichotomy I've seen!
OK...
> We're talking about real pre-press skills and jobs being lost and you
> try and make out that it's simply the case that one party isn't up to
> doing the job swap?
Being lost why? I think we know the answers.
I'm not saying anyone with a DSLR that calls themselves a photographer can
automatically walk into a print shop and land a job or even tell those
employees how to run their shops. I'm saying given a bit of education, a
good profile and stable process, they can produce excellent files for
reproduction. Maybe a day of training. It's going to take a heck of a lot
longer to teach a pressman how to setup strobes and actually light something
then shoot a professional level image in that time.
> Pre-press was once a profession in its own right.
So were blacksmith's and typesetters.
> Where are all these pre-press people? There's hardly anybody on this
> list who has earned a living creating separations, film and contract
> proofs. Just a bunch of photographers, consultants and software
> salesmen - all with a lot to say about pre-press despite having no
> experience of the industry whatsoever.
You mean a group who's successfully produced excellent files for output to a
press? That's my take. There's no amount of technology that will allow me to
practice brain surgery without some serious time in medical school. Not the
case making files for reproduction to press and elsewhere.
The group you point out is saying they have, by and large, been able to
produce the necessary files for repro on press in such a way that they have
repeated the process over and over again. They are either lying, delusional
or they are indeed able to accomplish what you are saying is beyond their
skill level.
I'm not trying to knock the knowledge and skill set a good prepress operator
possesses. I'm saying knowledgeable photographers don't need them to do an
RGB to CMYK conversion and provide post conversion editing to output
acceptable, even suburb files for the press. And I'm saying based on the
fact this is done all the time, the person who created the image knows
better about how the image should reproduce. They have a far higher vested
interest in the success of the output and the look of the images.
> Again I'll submit that I cannot understand you can gain the necessary
> skills without either experience in the industry (as it was) or
> without a huge investment in proofing kit and control equipment.
If the process is all over the map, we can't. But I don't wish to deal with
such providers for obvious reasons. If the process is relatively stable, we
can. This is happening every day, all over the world. I don't know of many
people who read a book on brain surgery or go to a seminar on the subject
and then walk into an operating room without killing the patient. I do know
photographers who take a class and can produce files that don't make the
press explode! We're talking about making a set of numbers optimized for a
process. If I had to do this in an analog fashion, I'd bow out in a second
and leave it to you guys. But that's not the case. It's a digital process
that when stable and profiled isn't brain surgery. There are probably
thousands of photographers that do this every day! Note that I'd be totally
ineffectual as an old time, analog typesetter too. But using desktop tools,
it isn't that difficult. Now that doesn't mean I have any kind of artistic
abilities, style or esthetics to layout a nice looking page just as handing
a pressman a point and shoot camera makes him Annie Leibovitz!
Andrew Rodney
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
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