Does anyone use AI within the Print Industry

[sidneykidney]

Apart from using AI within design, does anyone use it anywhere else?
I run a digital print workshop using a Xerox Versant 280 & Fiery Command Workstation for digital print, Duplo PFiBlade for flatbed cutting and Vivid Laminator/Foiler as well as other finishing machinery.
The only piece of AI software I've used so far is for enlarging low resolution images but don't see how any other particular AI software can fit in with our setup.

 

[Digi_Wiz]

I use Chatgpt to create number lists for setting finishing chapter sets when running variable data booklets in line on our KM C12000.

For example if i have a 3600 page pdf for 300 12 pagers i would create the Prompt:
Create a number list with this sequence 1,13,25... up to 3600

 

[prepressdork]

I’ve used AI to write scripts for automating tasks.

 

[tngcas]

Technically, the content aware feature in photoshop is AI but now that they switched the old content aware to their new AI it's gotten much worse at predicting what I need (at least in my experience).
If someone has a great way to use AI for adding bleeds to files let me know? I'd love that feature but all the independent ai options I've tried makes everything low resolution or isn't very good at guessing what's needed.

An AI for adding bleeds to multi-page documents using a content aware feature would be so useful.

 

[SoggyWinter]

I use AI products for Generative Fill in Photoshop, Excel formulas, powershell script writing.

I'd love to see someone come out with a Pitstop competitor that was trained to understand how PDFs work and how to manipulate them. An example would be adding bleed by using generative fill for bitmaps and vector stretching for vectors. Another example would being able to walk a junior pre-press technician through preflight and explaining what it was doing and why with fixing document issues like near black, transparency, looking embedded object issues, and what every mess Canva or Powerpoint spits out this time.

 

[sidneykidney]

I’ve used AI to write scripts for automating things.

For example...

 

[prepressdork]

For example...

Here are a few examples:

1. An AppleScript which duplicates every page in a PDF x times (we often print on 3 or 4 part carbonless and the RIP software doesn’t offer a feature for printing a page multiple times).
2. An AppleScript that creates our job folder structure and copies it to a specified network share.
3. A LiveCode app that I can drag an InDesign file package (zipped or decompressed folder) onto which triggers a UI where the user enters things like job number, etc. and the app creates our job folder structure, copies and organizes the files from the InDesign package into the job folder and copies the job folder to the specified network share.
4. An AppleScript that takes a PDF with A LOT of pages and separates them into smaller user-defined chunks (we do several jobs a month where the customer provides a PDF with say, 40,000 pages but our RIP software can only handle PDF files of up to 5,000 pages).

 

[Louis Dery]

Color interpolation using AI for ICC color LUT ;-)

 

[Magnus]

I use AI for many tasks in my daily work. Especially when building workflows and integrations between frontends (web shops) and ERP/MIS. It's a really powerful tool! Building scripts for converting between various job ticket formats, JSON, XML, JDF, Excel etc. Building scripts for Indesign and Illustrator. And alot more.

 

[prepressdork]

I use AI for many tasks in my daily work. Especially when building workflows and integrations between frontends (web shops) and ERP/MIS. It's a really powerful tool! Building scripts for converting between various job ticket formats, JSON, XML, JDF, Excel etc. Building scripts for Indesign and Illustrator. And alot more.

What are some scripts you've built for InDesign and Illustrator?

 

[kslight]

I use AI products for Generative Fill in Photoshop, Excel formulas, powershell script writing.

I'd love to see someone come out with a Pitstop competitor that was trained to understand how PDFs work and how to manipulate them. An example would be adding bleed by using generative fill for bitmaps and vector stretching for vectors. Another example would being able to walk a junior pre-press technician through preflight and explaining what it was doing and why with fixing document issues like near black, transparency, looking embedded object issues, and what every mess Canva or Powerpoint spits out this time.

Not AI…but the newest (beta) release of quite imposing has added a quick bleed adding tool, you can select between mirroring or (global) scaling. 99% of the time it does what it needs to without making it worse.

Within Acrobat’s Preflight tool - I made a preset that is a quick way to flatten transparencies and converts to cmyk…gets the job done for the problem customers.

 

[namelessentity]

I'm not seeing anything here that can't just be done manually with minimal effort. I just read this article this morning and I think the less you use AI the better. I think the only useful AI application is generating images/video and upscaling. Everything else is generally just making garbage code that would be better made by someone who actually knows that they're doing.

 

[tngcas]

Everything else is generally just making garbage code that would be better made by someone who actually knows that they're doing.

This is the key phrasing...
If you don't personally know how to write those scripts, it's very hard (from my experience) to find people these days who know what they're doing. Garbage code that works... is sometimes better and faster than the time it takes to find, interview and test out to discover whether or not someone can write the code you need efficiently. If they can't then you have to repeat the process over and over again until you find someone who does.

I'll take the garbage code that works over wasting my time.
If someone wants to come up with a system of vetting and testing people who know what they're doing and make it so that I can avoid wasting my time finding out that every code firm in America is mostly outsourcing their work to overseas programmers who get 90% of what I ask for wrong because they barely understand english then... yeah, we'd be less likely to use AI for that stuff.

 

[namelessentity]

This is the key phrasing...
If you don't personally know how to write those scripts, it's very hard (from my experience) to find people these days who know what they're doing. Garbage code that works... is sometimes better and faster than the time it takes to find, interview and test out to discover whether or not someone can write the code you need efficiently. If they can't then you have to repeat the process over and over again until you find someone who does.

I'll take the garbage code that works over wasting my time.
If someone wants to come up with a system of vetting and testing people who know what they're doing and make it so that I can avoid wasting my time finding out that every code firm in America is mostly outsourcing their work to overseas programmers who get 90% of what I ask for wrong because they barely understand english then... yeah, we'd be less likely to use AI for that stuff.

Fair point. The issue I have is there's no one capable of troubleshooting it if it's all being written by AI. I was speaking more outside of print, but it's gonna be an issue in all industries. It's like that movie "Multiplicty" where he keeps cloning himself until one of the clones is a moron. If AI keeps referencing worse and worse code it won't have any quality samples to base itself on.

 

[sidneykidney]

Fair point. The issue I have is there's no one capable of troubleshooting it if it's all being written by AI. I was speaking more outside of print, but it's gonna be an issue in all industries. It's like that movie "Multiplicty" where he keeps cloning himself until one of the clones is a moron. If AI keeps referencing worse and worse code it won't have any quality samples to base itself on.

So the next question is, Who's feeding the AI and telling it 'this is the one and only answer'?

 

[jwheeler]

So the next question is, Who's feeding the AI and telling it 'this is the one and only answer'?

This guy:

 

[rhayling]

Technically, the content aware feature in photoshop is AI but now that they switched the old content aware to their new AI it's gotten much worse at predicting what I need (at least in my experience).
If someone has a great way to use AI for adding bleeds to files let me know? I'd love that feature but all the independent ai options I've tried makes everything low resolution or isn't very good at guessing what's needed.

An AI for adding bleeds to multi-page documents using a content aware feature would be so useful.

Have you tried Enfocus Pitstop more so if the multi page document is a PDF?

 

[tngcas]

Have you tried Enfocus Pitstop more so if the multi page document is a PDF?

We don't use Pitstop in our shop as the complexities are more than what we need and the learning curve was too high last time I looked into it. I could look at it again, I think we have access to it via our Fiery Impose Licenses. If not, we won't pay for it. We have use Acrobat for Multipage documents to add bleeds but that just lets you do mirrored margins and repeating edge pixels. Not sure if Enfocus does a content aware type system like Photoshop does.

 

[DennisC.]

These guys have taught us everything we know about AI and they're FANTASTIC resources for all things AI as it relates to selling more printing! We've been using them for years as a fantastic resource ... they owned a large printing firm for YEARS and they are ONE OF US!
https://www.marketingideasforprinters.com/ai-for-printers/

 

[DhavalPX]

Yes, AI is becoming quite common in the print industry. Many businesses use it for design automation, predictive maintenance, workflow optimization, and personalized marketing. Tools powered by AI can auto-generate designs, detect print errors early, and even forecast demand trends. It’s really helping printers save time, reduce waste, and deliver more customized results.