Re: PC VS Mac Platforms
Russell,
Those of us (including Dinos such as I) in prepress that work natively know full well that when revisiting an older job, we must constrain to use the same level of all items in that job, I said all items (read fonts too). Even an old Rip and old workflow arguably should be kept active and run parallel to a new Rip/workflow.
My peers often have multiple workflows in their shop; Postscript, Creo, Agfa, Esko, Fuji, Screen, Indigo direct, iGen, etc. The key being that each system has its quirks and methods some direct to pdf, some through invisible ps, some proprietary. Some systems now have four or more routes within themselves.
Rant:
I am aware that pdfs that were supposedly properly made, even compliant will produce different results through different routes within one system and certainly different results through altering systems; I note, some of the time. Mostly it is transparency that causes changes in result (eg: drop shadows) but it can be screwball spot color use, the incorrect use of white with overprint or some other silly error that just cannot be seen until after the job is processed. Tiny gaps, uneven tinting, blends that are interpreted and the list goes on and on. I have seen files saved without preserve spot colors when possible unchecked and the jon ruined by a non-job item in a scrub area. You just never know. And we teach that operators they should bang into these things during off hours whenever possible but often an op will spend eight hours on the clock trying to solve a strange issue while the op on the next shift spent those hours weeks or even months before and has a two minute fix.
Prepress seems to have morphed into Hell sometimes.
John W
