Write down 10 sentences of your own according to the topic using the adverbs.

 

Unit TWO

TEXT 1

                                         CONVENTIONAL PREPRESS

 

The process of producing printed products can be divided into three parts: prepress, printing (press), and print finishing (postpress).

Prepress includes all the processing steps required to go from the preparation of the text, original images and graphics as well as the design concept right up to the production of the ready-for-print a printing plate, it is then employed at the printing stage to produce the job.

A fundamental technological change has taken place within prepress. The use of conventional typesetting machines, repro cameras, and film has been replaced by computer technology in virtually all branches of this industry. Text and image are digitized or actually created digitally, processed electronically and output directly onto the printing plate in print format, and increasingly without the use of film intermediates.

For many companies film remains an indispensable information carrier, that’s why both conventional and digital prepress technologies are used nowadays. The distinguishing factor between them is the way the films are used: all technological variations where individual films are used for the page or print sheet composition and require conventional, mechanical/manual film assembly processes, and do not there-fore employ digital full-page film exposure systems, are dealt with under the category “conventional prepress.”

The first step in producing a printing plate is the creation of the film copies for the printing plates. Film copies contain all of the information to be printed on the printed sheet corresponding to each color, but also opaque black-and-white originals especially for single-color work. In contrast to the digital production of masters where text and image processing are carried out at the same time, in conventional prepress text creation and image processing are carried out separately.

Today’s typesetting begins with the inputting of text into a computer. Word processing on computers with powerful, user friendly word processing programs has become state of the art.

Text input is the first stage of typesetting. This task is undertaken by the author himself. Text input is followed by word processing, which creates the design parameters planned in the layout such as the choice of font, font size, line length and spaces for images to be added later.

Word processing is followed by text output. The designed blocks of text are output onto film or paper. In this form they are ready for manual page make-up that is, for completion with images and graphics required by the page of the book. If page layout including the integration of text and image is carried out electronically in the computer, the completed page is output on film or paper. The file forms a useful starting point either for electronic/digital processing, such as computer to plate or computer to film, for digital printing by direct imaging, and so on, or for further use in electronic media.

Corrections to the output text are time-consuming and expensive and should therefore be avoided as much as possible. For this reason a number of correction stages are incorporated into the procedure. “House corrections” are made in the printing house with the help of paper printouts of the digitally stored text. Corrections by the author follow the completion of the designed columns of text. These are output as galley proofs on paper and sent to the author for proofreading.

When corrections have been made the page is made up. The main function of the correction process which forms page make-up is the placing of the pictures in the correct position on the page, the correct and complete assigning of the picture captions, footnotes, cross references to other pages, and the arranging of headers and footers including page numbering. After further proofreading and checking the author signs to confirm that the pages are correct and ready for printing, that is, he passes them for press.

Should the further processing of the text into a film be done conventionally, that is manual assembly, exposed films are required.

Output devices used for the exposure of films are called “film imagesetters”. There are imagesetters of the flatbed design, capstan imagesetters, and internal and external drum imagesetters. In all of them exposure takes place spot by spot in lines across the whole area being exposed.

The combination of text and images to form a page occurs during the page “make-up”. In the production of conventional printing plates the complete page is put together manually by repro experts from text and images that exist mainly as cut films. The films are placed on a carrier sheet, adjusted for position, and fastened in place. The quality of the print depends directly on the precision and care of the makeup. Register errors caused at this stage are unlikely to be able to be compensated for later in the print. Film stripping is carried out on a light table. Its work surface consists of a glass plate that is illuminated from below with diffuse white light. Two steel rulers at exact right angles, which may be moved in parallel, are used to ensure accurate stripping.

In preparation for the stripping a millimeter sheet is first placed on the light table with the carrier sheet on top and fastened with adhesive tape. The carrier sheet is a plastic film that is dimensionally stable, insensitive to moisture, crystal clear, clean, and free of scratches and should be as resistant as possible to build-up of electrostatic charge. Polyester film with a thickness of 0.15 mm has proved useful for this purpose.

The several films are always mounted with the coating facing uppermost so that during subsequent copying exposure occurs coating to coating to avoid undercutting.

The assembly of multicolored images must be carried out with particular care as imprecision translates directly into register errors.

Sheet assembly is an information-gathering point of central importance for achieving trouble-free results.

The first step in producing a sheet assembly is to draw a layout sheet containing the correct measurements. It is the same format as the sheet with an additional border and is made of dimensionally stable transparent material/paper. If we take a layout sheet for a sheet-fed offset press as an example, after positioning on the light table parallel to the axes and fastening with adhesive tape, the sheet format, gripper edge, the beginning of the print, and the center line are marked in. The data required for this are in the documentation referring to the press or may be obtained from the job itself.

The exact outlines of all of the pages to be accommodated on the top surface of the sheet must be accurately drawn, in reverse (wrong-reading). These include the distances between the pages taking into account allowances for folding and trimming. The page number must be entered in the bottom outside corner of each page.

The result of prepress – in particular error-free typesetting and its correct location on the page, the quality of the images, the registration, the quality of color reproduction on the paper, the reproduction of details and their correct location on the sheet in all color separations/colors in accordance with the original – should be checked for accuracy at the earliest possible stages in the process.

The following proofs are typical of what is used in conventional prepress:

• galley proof;

• position proof/blueprint;

• color proof;

• press proof;

Galley proofs are produced for corrections to typesetting products such as continuous text, headings and titles, headers and footers for individual pages, picture captions, footnotes, indexes, and tables of contents, as well as to control the completeness and correct location of marks and control strips. They are produced as a paper printout of typesetting files, or as a paper print or blueprint of typeset columns preset in film form or film assemblies. After checking and marking necessary corrections the originals are altered and released for the next processing steps.

Position proofs are required to check the completeness and correct location of text and image. Blueprints from the film assemblies or full-page films fulfill this purpose very well and are also cost-effective.

Color proofs are necessary for judging the quality of multicolor products. The color proof may be produced for individual images, but it is preferable to produce them for the whole page, although this is less often feasible for the whole sheet – mainly due to reasons of format.

For the printing side the color proof may be used to control the correct position of the individual color separations on the page, accurately registered assembly, the approximate overall color effect of the page or the representative color reproduction of the printed product to be produced, but with certain limitations, since the proofing process and materials used are generally not the same as the technology and materials used to produce the job; color management assists in optimizing this.

Press proofing process has the best achievable correlation with the subsequent printing of the job, especially if the printing press used is the same one that will be used to print the job. This requires a full set of printing plates. The printed proof is produced on the paper and with the ink used for the job. The effort for producing such a printed proof is considerable and only justified

for very high quality requirements. To keep high speed production machines available during the time it takes to produce the printed proofs, special proofing machines are available.

Platemaking

Printing plates vary according to the individual technology – offset, letterpress/flexography, gravure, and screen printing.

During platemaking itself, the film is transferred optically onto the unexposed printing plate. This is done by means of either a contact copy or projection. In the former process a film is used whereas projection is done either from film or a reflection copy, that is, a paste-up. A printing plate is produced for each primary color of the intended print on the basis of the corresponding color separation.

Radiation or exposure of the unexposed printing plate in accordance with the image may be followed by an intermediate step (such as heating) before the printing plate is developed using the chemical/physical processes appropriate to its material. This is followed by the final treatment of the plate, in which the latter undergoes after-treatment (e.g., baking to increase possible run length) or preservative measures (e.g., gumming-up to improve storage properties and printability) and is prepared for fitting in the press (e.g., punching, beveling).

 

 

ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY

Words and Word Combinations

 

1. conventional (digital) prepress
2. press
3.  print finishing (postpress)
4. printing plate (film)
5. typesetting
6. text input (output)
7. word processing
8. page make-up (layout)
9. digital processing
10. computer to plate technology
11. computer to film technology
12. corrections (proofs)
13. proofreading
14. to expose
15. imagesetter
16. register errors
17. accurate stripping
18. adhesive tape
19. assembly
20. correct measurements
21. gripper edge
22. registration
23. color reproduction
24. color separation
25. galley proof
26. position proof (blueprint)
27.  color proof
28. press proof
29. primary color
30. treatment of the plate
31. RGB
32. CMYK

 

ACTIVITIES