Prepress Update Week 4

Busy week with prepress as my other job allowed the flexibility to go almost every day this week. I really wanted to take the time to learn more about the actual presses themselves so I got to talked with Chris, the pressman, about the process and things that effect the printing procedure. The press I looked at that day had manual levers that you can adjust for the ink flow distributed to the rollers. His eyes are much better than mine, because I couldn't see a damn thing uneven about the job, but there was a difference in black on one side. The computer still can't fix every color correction and it was fascinating to see how adjustments are still made as the presses are rolling. Almost all inks are soy based now and the art to incredible printing is the balance between ink and water, which the technician has a trained eye to keep an eye on. I had no idea what I was looking at, but it was great new information.










I also learned quite a bit about creating die lines, which I still messed up in the end! If you're not making mistakes then you're not learning right? It's becoming more familiar and not so scary. The biggest challenge is learning the Prepress software. Or as they call it Apogee. I get it all confused. And I must mention that Mark has over 40 years of printing experience, not ten. My bad, Mark! Learning about spot colors has taken me a while to catch on to as well. It's only been two weeks, I really need to stop being so neurotic about knowing everything right now.

I've realized part of the challenges I faced in college was because I couldn't see the entire picture of the entire design process. I wanted to know exactly how something was produced beginning to end. In graphic design they just teach you how to make things effectively communicate visually, not to effectively communicate with people in the entire field. It's a lot of fun hearing everyone's stories. Sales representatives, typesetters, customers service, prepress, pressman, managers, etc. It's all connected and it's all so very fascinated to hear their relationships to one another.