Notes On The Filefilm Preparation Checklist

Unlike notes on most other checklists, these notes are not a supplement to the material presented in the chapter. Rather, they are an integral part of the chapter. The checklist is presented in Figure 15.1.

1. Project manager. The direct technical supervisor. If the client has no one in this capacity on staff, use the person or studio that prepared the final art.

2. Tentative schedule. The schedule prepared before the prepress firm is selected. This is generally done at the very beginning of the project, during its planning stages. For anything complicated or more than a few pages, have a prepress firm give a ballpark time estimate to help your planning. The prepress vendor probably can't estimate costs without more facts.

3. Start-up. The date the prepress firm can begin processing materials and, if different, when all the final piece will be delivered.

4. Supplier selection. If you are new to the field or to the geographic location, here are workable suggestions for selecting a prepress supplier.

• Find out whom your company or organization has used in the past. Don't change without a reason.

• Call several printers in the area and ask for their recommendations.

• Ask the nearest local direct marketing association. To find it, call the Direct Marketing Association in New York at (212) 768-7277. Ask for the "DM Clubs and Association Network."

• Ask the promotional director of some local businesses.

• Check the Yellow Pages under "Printing—Color Separator" or "Prepress."

For simple one- or two-color projects, almost anyone recommended should do. So shop for price and schedule. For full-color or complicated projects, call first to learn the kind of work the various suppliers do. (Think twice before having a podiatrist do brain surgery or a brain surgeon look at your feet.) Get references. Check! Get samples. Give your final candidates written specifications, including deadlines.

5. Final schedule. Prepare a schedule that you, your prepress firm, and your printer can meet to get the project done on time. If all else fails, negotiate.

6. Completion. The date the client is responsible for approving the final proofing. Be sure to allow for at least two proofings on everything.

7. File/Film printer contact. File/film must be prepared to match the printer's need. Choose your printer as early as you do the prepress firm, and have both agree on how material is to be delivered (for instance, as 4-, 8-, or 12-page units).

8. Prepress art check. The prepress vendor should check the drawings, paintings, and other original art so as to foresee problems in duplication and to discuss their solutions. (It is sometimes better to begin with a color photograph, rather than with the original.) Also, the prepress vendor should select the most reproducible photograph or transparencies when several are available. Often, the choice is between contrast and detail. In printing, the printed photographs and drawings are called halftones because they are made up of dots of various sizes lined up in rows, with from 65 to 400 dots per inch. The fewer the dots, referred to as line, screen, halftone, or any combination of the three ("65-line screen," "200-line halftone" etc.), the less detail can be shown. But specific lighting and camera settings also control results. Without instructions, prepress color separators tend to work for a middle ground. For advertising and promotional purposes, we almost always prefer high contrast. When numerous illustrations will be used, have the firm shoot and proof samples in a range of modes before you make a decision on which to use.

For rougher stock newspapers, 65- to 85-line halftones are standard. In general commercial offset work, 133 to 200 dots are typically used. Two hundred- to 400-line reproduction is used only in the highest quality printing, almost always to show detailed illustrations to exceptional advantage. For any advertisement or for your own commercial work, check on the maximum number of lines the printer can use. Each printing press works best at a specific line value. Know what that is, and make certain that no finer screening is ordered from the prepress firm. Fewer lines may give you less of an impact, but it is never a printing problem. On the other hand, more than the maximum number of lines for a particular press tends to produce random ink blots that reduce rather than enhance detail.

9. Prefilm file/new art check. Except on the simplest of projects, do not just ship final materials to the prepress firm. Rather, take your artist or art director with you to meet with them and go over each instruction. Ask the film/file maker to point out potential difficulties in printing, including the printing of multicolor type as well as costs not covered by the estimated total. Using some color combinations within type can be a register problem for the printer.

10. Random proofs. When transparencies are the art against which proofs are compared, they are generally placed on a "light box," which illuminates them as if they were projected onto a screen. No printed proof can possibly match the intensity of the colors this produces! Visualize the originals that the transparencies show, and make that the basis for judging.

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