Help with scanning camera ready copy
Mark Hofmann
Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our publication has just gone the way of digital pre-press. Most of our ads
in the publication are created in house on Macs. However, we still have a
number of customers who supply us with camera ready copy of their ad. We
have experimented with scanning them into the system, but have had little
luck with quality. Everything has saw tooth edging. We need good scans with
smooth graphics.
Anyone with tips or info, your response is appreciated.
Mark Hofmann
Kym ap Rhys
HI,
I have similar problems occasionally, with clients supplying advertising
as 'camera ready'. There several approaches to this - one is to scan the
whole ad (and if it has text and fine lines, you will need high
resolution scans - large and unmanageable.) Although I have had some
success in scanning at 600dpi for mono line art type work (don't resize
it afterwards!) I scan these linearts as greyscale, which seems to
minimise the jaggies.
Most ads I recreate - I scan the thing and keep the photos and complex
graphics, and redo the text in the page layout package. I also moan at
the client and try and get at least the photos and art in electronic
form. This may seem tedious, but can be quicker than retouching a whole
scan. As it is usually the text that shows the worst jaggies, this is
often the best route if the client really can't give you full electronic
copy.
Best Regards
Kym ap Rhys
jclo...@compgrafx.com
See if you can find a service bureau with a Copy Dot scanner. This allows you to
scan positives and separated negatives and put them in digital format.
Joe
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Sent via Comp Mail, Pre-Press of the future!
Comp Associates, Inc. - Worcester, Massachusetts
www.compgrafx.com
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Michael Sullivan
In article <33C9D1...@dhios.demon.co.uk>,
Kym ap Rhys <k...@dhios.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Mark Hofmann wrote:
>> Our publication has just gone the way of digital pre-press. Most of our ads
>> in the publication are created in house on Macs. However, we still have a
>> number of customers who supply us with camera ready copy of their ad. We
>> have experimented with scanning them into the system, but have had little
>> luck with quality. Everything has saw tooth edging. We need good scans with
>> smooth graphics.
>I have similar problems occasionally, with clients supplying advertising
>as 'camera ready'. There several approaches to this - one is to scan the
>whole ad (and if it has text and fine lines, you will need high
>resolution scans - large and unmanageable.) Although I have had some
>success in scanning at 600dpi for mono line art type work (don't resize
>it afterwards!) I scan these linearts as greyscale, which seems to
>minimise the jaggies.
Not much you can do really. As a trade printer we have exactly the same
problem -- way too many printers who don't understand digital and can't
understand why the type we set comes out so much cleaner than the type
they continue to send us, or why we would charge more for "camera-ready"
in some cases, than work we can typeset to a standard format.
The keys are as follows: the best scanner you can afford. We use an Agfa
Horizon. I find the UMax Powerlook 2000 passable, though nowhere near as
good. Arcus and similar inexpensive flatbeds are alright, but
considerably lower quality on line art, which turns out to be as/more
demanding than color in some ways.
We do everything at 800dpi (which number we arrived at by trial and
error), and someone at the QXP conference last year (I think it was David
Blatner) used that figure as "where the average human eye loses track of
jaggies."
Using 600 dpi means cleaning up every curved or angled line, unless it's
kind of a cheesy logo to begin with. for type, or decent art, 800 is a
must.
Occasionally we'll see very small type predone screens or fine lines that
we'll go to 1200 dpi for. Obviously this is a major space and print time
hog with large files.
I don't find grayscale helps much, other than as an intermediate step for
smoothing out lines (dangerous on type -- the outlines get cleaner but you
lose information and can plug or break very easily). It looks better on
screen, but when you print you just get dots at the edges which look as
bad as any jaggies would. If it's line-art you have to convert to bitmap
at 50% threshold for it to print cleanly.
Another option if the type is large enough is to scan at 1600+ dpi and
streamline it with the controls set very tight (1.5 and 1.5).
If the type is smaller than 8-9 point or very fine, this will lose too
much definition, but for headlines and large copy it works fine -- as long
as your input is *excellent*. It all comes down to the scanner. We
bought the horizon because when we bought it, it was the cheapest model
available which reproduced line art as well as our cameras had previously.
Last I looked, the price had gone down a bit (to $US17K or so) and the
speed improved, but it was still the best option. The Powerlook 2000 is
okay for backup, but it's not really the same.
>Most ads I recreate - I scan the thing and keep the photos and complex
>graphics, and redo the text in the page layout package. I also moan at
>the client and try and get at least the photos and art in electronic
>form. This may seem tedious, but can be quicker than retouching a whole
>scan.
We do this as much as possible. It helps having a huge font library too.
Michael