In the publishing world, the concept of "prepress" is not fresh and in the language of printing professionals it is used in everyday life with the frequency of a slang term. Prepress or prepress - what is it? A prepress is the development of a prepress version of a printed edition.
Before submitting a material version of a publication, it is necessary to visualize it. Here, a kind of electronic layouts and sketches of a printing product come to the rescue, which, of course, helps to avoid shortcomings, unnecessary errors and financial costs before a large-scale printing process is launched.
This is the short answer to the question: "What is a prepress?"
Understanding the process step by step
The duties of an employee of the prepress bureau of a printing house include not just preparing for printing a product layout, usually placed on a regular printed sheet, knowledge is important herefeatures of printing machines, including a specific printing house. The prepress employee is involved in the layout of the pages of the publication, in the editing and retouching of digital photographs, takes into account scales and marks, and performs color correction.
Prepress steps
The following stages are conditional: something, depending on specific needs, is excluded, and something is added in the process. But, as a rule, the standard scheme looks like this:
- Design is being developed, a common vision of the final result of the printed product.
- An electronic layout is made taking into account the layout - installation of stripes, typed text and headings, diagrams, tables, photos, illustrations, etc.
- Proofreading text.
- Making changes based on color correction, choosing a trapping method.
- Collection of color proofs for verification of "hit in color".
- Implementation of imposition and subsequent processing, taking into account cutting, folding (folding sheets in a certain sequence, observing the established format), creasing (the process of applying a straight groove on a sheet of paper), etc.
- Production of transparencies - film output.
- Production of a printed version of the product.
All stages of preprint production of printed products are very closely related and interdependent, they are responsible for the final product, and reveal the essence of the definition. Now you know what prepress is.
Process Description
Correct Understandingprocess is very important to minimize errors and unnecessary costs, and obtain a quality print run.
Prepress is the last stage of preparatory work before submitting material to print. It is made taking into account the requirements of a particular printing house.
The role of the prepress designer is invaluable. For competent performance of prepress preparation the experienced specialist in this area is required. Sometimes it happens that even a fairly qualified prepress specialist is not quite able to do what a prepress engineer can easily do.
The duties of an engineering specialist include knowledge of basic things about raster processes, elementary rasterization algorithms. He must have a clear understanding of the lineature, have an idea about the angles of the raster. Without knowledge of such things, a prepress engineer can no longer be one. Otherwise, due to significant gaps in knowledge, his work will contain many technical errors, and the consequences will be disastrous.
No less important is the coordination of the work of the web designer and the prepress specialist, as well as excellent awareness in the field of information technology, knowledge of the technological component, the intricacies of the printing process and equipment.
If the customer only sets the task of preparing the photographic material without any editing layout and re-lining, the specialist only adjusts the material to size, performs color correction and color separation, and retouches the photographic material.
To be donelayout and design of the publication, a layout designer is needed: he will control the implementation of all installation work, he will be able to clearly substantiate the technical requirements of a particular printing company in which it will be printed. Since the printing house is certified under a certain printing standard, most often the initial prepress preparation and the actual printing is already carried out according to the established printing standard.
In conclusion
Having found answers to the main question: "What is a prepress?", let's clarify what needs to be considered before submitting a layout for printing. First of all, the absence of errors and unnecessary changes in it will save you from additional annoying and costly losses.
You always need to remember and take into account the specific individual characteristics of the order, so that the completed layout matches the finished product as closely as possible. It is important during the prepress process to visualize the finished product all the time, push off and adapt to this image.
