Illustrator vs. Packedge/Artpro

[wesley]

Here's a question to the experienced audience. Given the Esko tools available in Illustrator now, How comfortable is everyone with working a job completely in CS4 directly through to tiffs using BS without the use of PackEdge or Artpro? If you have licenses of either or both high-end editors what benefits will the Illustrator only workflow provide? I suppose this question really depends on the kind of work done, so I am primarily interested in Packaging for flexo shops with fairly difficult work beyond 6 color including spot channels in images, trapping, bitmaps, spot to process blends, you know the rest.
Thanks for your comments.

[marc3llo]

Hi Wesley,

I worked about 4 years with Packedge and then I switched to Illustrator because I changed my job. If you are doing packeging and your printing system is flexography, stick to Esko, there is nothing like that and I can't imagine how you can set up different screens in the same colour or different Lpi, etc..

Another thing I feel as a user is that PAckedge is designed for this purpose and you realised when you use the spread and choke tool, how you can change a colour globally, how to clean the colours in the colour factory, ect...

I can't wait to go back to Packedge in a way and not even Despkack can do anything about it. And speaking of which, I think ESko is killing the repro houses in the way we knew them.. now a lot more people can afford the deskpack plugin and bob'your uncle.

Cheers
Marcelo

[nsk]

Illustrator has grown several times and included lot of Artpro facilities in it. With esko plugins you should be able to execute any job. But both the Illustrator+Esko so far is not equal to Artpro. It is only a compromise.

[eskopdl]

Hello Marcello,

With the DeskPack for Ai Ink manager you can easily select one ink and change it for another, mapping, or select all objects using a specific ink then change that ink using your colour palette. The Esko Ink Mix tool for Ai allows for combining specific percentages of colours used in the file to create a new swatch in the Ai Colour Palette, much like in PackEdge's Colour Factory.
Also with the ScreenX plugin for Ai you can apply different screenings on an object based level using EskoArtwork screening, hence any object in the file, and any of the inks in that object, can have a completely different dot, LPI, or angle assigned. ---> http://www.esko.com/MKT-Web-Files/De...X/screenX.html

peter

[Kristian]

We still use ArtPro as our preferred format internally. We only use DeskPack if we are sending out artwork to someone who cannot use ArtPro.

DeskPack plugins have got much better but overall, ArtPro has much more features has a better ease of use (but that may just be because I use it more than Illustrator).

Kristian

[Julia D]

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but how do you send a single separation from Illustrator cs5 using the Launch Workflow? We often need to send only one colour plate of a multi-plate job, but it always sends all of them.

I'm sure it's simple and I'll kick myself for not figuring it out...

[eskopdl]

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but how do you send a single separation from Illustrator cs5 using the Launch Workflow? We often need to send only one colour plate of a multi-plate job, but it always sends all of them.

Piece of cake with the Automation Engine 10 upgrade to BackStage/DeskPack. Options in your workflows can be published as Public Parameters that will allow for output option choices to be selected when sending from Illustrator. Watch this movie about what's new in AE10 - Automation Engine: Prepress Workflow Automation - pay particular attention to the portion about the Shuttle application about midway in. The Shuttle is now incorporated into and available for Illustrator.

Contact your EskoArtwork rep or Support about getting your upgrade to AE10. - Contact EskoArtworks with a question or remark

[marc3llo]

@eskopdl

If i have to buy all those plug-ins, I'd rather prefer buying Packedge, much faster and reliable than a bunch of plug-ins installed in a software made by another company.

Cheers
Marcelo

[wesley]

That is were I am at with CS and Plugins. We currently own PackEdge and BoostX, Dynamic content, BarX plugins etc. . I try to stay on top of the latest offerings Esko makes available. Perhaps Eskopdl would help us understand the marketing and direction Esko is targeting. We all would LOVE the Illustrator round trip which would make this whole discussion mute, but we are missing the font engine in BS unless you are a rocket scientist, and just like punishment. I prefer to work in PE as the Adobe app is at the mercy of the plug-ins and Vice-versa. Even on a brand new machine with gobs of RAM, Illustrator will hang on a big file with lots going on. Not so in PE. Help us understand eskopdl.

[Chief_1975]

"Perhaps Eskopdl would help us understand the marketing and direction Esko is targeting."

This will be interesting to see if we get a honest answer, as from what I can see traditional repro companies are no longer the target audience in favour of pandering to the big FMCG who want the repro stage eliminated with design agencies taking care of this free of charge with automated solutions.

Stand by.............