Introduce yourself!

[AngusJ]

I work for a sheetfed printer here in good old las vegas. After reading all of the different probs and solutions posted here I feel somewhat of a novice although I've been in the business for about 20 years. I've been spinning my wheels doing preps for a major web shop here in vegas for about four years and got behind on my desktop skills. I have now landed a job as an operator for a sheetfed shop and I'm struggling a bit. It's coming back to me but very slowly. This forum is cool although I do wish people would be more specific when they post.

 

[Dave_T]

Re: Introduce yourself!

Hi everyone!

My name is Dave and I've worked as a prepress technician/graphic artist for around 20 years. I started at a newspaper in Kenora, Ontario, Canada working with Quark Xpress version 1 on a Mac Plus with 512K of RAM with no hard drive doing paste up work and now work at Leech Printing in Brandon, Manitoba with Adobe Creative Suite CS3, Quark Xpress 7 on a Mac Pro with 2 GB of RAM and a 300 GB hard drive. We have our own press department with an SM 10 color along with various other smaller presses. I also use Agfa ApogeeX 3.5 with a Palladio platesetter which is the main reason I joined PrintPlant. As stated recently on the Apogee User Group Forum there isn't much technical support or tips available from Agfa for free.

 

[lynnz]

Prepress & Graphics Lead Person

Prepress & Graphics Lead Person

Hi,
My name is Lynn and I work for a Packaging Company.
I've been in the printing industry for 25 years now (crazy huh?)
I have a husband, 2 children and 2 step-children. All grown.

Jeff and I enjoy camping whenever we can get away.

Looking forward to learning from you all!

 

[AngusJ]

Where you from Lynn?

 

[lynnz]

Sorry, guess I was kind of vague. I'm from Freedom WI (close to Green Bay, GO PACKERS).

 

[TDS print]

Hello

Hello

Hi my name is Don,

I have a small printing business in East Toronto................I've worked in small offset shop for 15 years and decided that It was time to go out on my own.

I've been on my own for 7 years now.........every year is getting harder than the year before. The market is changing so much......with the digital machines. it hard to compete fairly.

I look forward to learning from other professional in the indusrty, and having the chance to throwing in my 2cents worth, regarding the ever changing print markets.

thanks in advance.
Don

 

[billhasty]

hello and thanks, hope to gain some extra insite

hello and thanks, hope to gain some extra insite

i'm a pressman and have been for 30 years, from color king web, to multi's and ryobi. i loved mikes comment that he doesn't like pressmen LOL well guess what? most of us don't like designers either. right now i run ryobi 3302 and 3304 DI wth the color bar scanning sysyem. waterless ink sysyems sure make for a fine looking job from linen paper to gloss to kromecoat. will run a 11.5 X17.5 solid build in any color though you will still get ghosting from long white knockouts. i miss the old days when clip art was the rule and a two color business card was thought as fancy! seems now and i won't blame the prepress deparrtment but where did this trend come from of having the back of your business card a solid with a website? anyway enough from me thanks bill

 

[knielsen]

knielsen

knielsen

Hi, I've been in direct mail since '82 and am currently transitioning from running a large data services team to a sales role. Why you might ask (as I have asked myself) would I do a risky career change in these uncertain economic times? I want to interact more with the customer and believe companies with strong value-propositions will thrive despite market conditions.

I'm an operations person at heart and am hopeful this site helps me stay connected to what's happening on the shop floor.

 

[dan3theman]

Hey there
Name is Dan
Been in trade since 1985 as a CO-OP student at large printer.
Learned all from Contacting,stripping,Color Etching,Color proofing.
Left there as a lead Scanner operator and some Scitex experience.
Been working for a publisher since 1992, started in there in house Prep dept producing plate ready film flats. We have updated with the times and now produce plate ready PDFs for various printers.
Use all Adobe products and Quark through a Nexus Rip.

Spare time like relaxing with family,some bowling( its a Wisconsin thing! ....eh )Also like any racing , my son races High performance Karts throughout midwest.

Dan

 

[Lsmith3280]

Hi, my name is Lisa and I am the owner of an advertising agency which designs for print, web design, and video. All the artsy stuff. I have been looking to expand into printing, but the more I learn the less I think it will be profitable. I would like to introduce myself to develop contacts for printing jobs which will be coming up on a continual basis. We have been looking into digital printing for smaller jobs, but that still leaves the problem of 30,000+ print runs on a monthly basis. So, any feedback would be great on whether there is a "transitional" machine out there that would be cost effective for running magazines, as well as, brochures, newsletters and general corporate printing. Anyway, hello. And, I'm glad I found a forum that deals with pre-press to post press.

 

[[email protected]]

The Big Move

The Big Move

Hi, My name is Paul. I've been in the industry since 1975 mainly in quick print and small sheet commercial. My wife and I have owned and operated a shop near Vancouver, Canada since the early 80's. We have a pressroom with Ryobi 3302, AB Dick 9810/T head and do computer to plate with a DPM 2000 CPS plate setter. On the digital side we have a couple 75 CPM black and white, a 32 CPM color, a 36 inch black and white and a 42 in color. Our lease runs out Dec 31 2008 and we find ourselves contemplating closing the pressroom and aquiring a 60-70 CPM digital press and subbing out any offset work. This is a hard decision for us (If I'm cut,I bleed ink!) and I'd love to talk to anyone who has done a move like this to see how it goes.

 

[GeraldSA]

Hi everybody.
My name is Gerald and I live in South Africa, in a town known as Alberton, which is about 20Kms south east of Johannesburg.
I have been with Agfa now for 14years. Prior to this I was with EAC Graphics, for 7 years, who distributed Crossfield scanners (I think these were still the all time best machines ever) and the 800 series of pagination systems. A while after that I was with the local distributor for Scitex (Dolev, etc.) for 2 years.
At the moment, I have made the transfer from film setters - after 11 years - to newspaper CTP machinery, Polaris and Advantage. Magnificent machinery and I am still learning a lot about them. Recently I have been tasked with moving into a plate specialist position. I will be working closer with our sales team and much more with a greater diversity of Agfa consumables in the CTP side of things. I have already started delving into this area and I'm really looking forward to future developments.
I have just a few hours ago been made aware of this e-community and am also looking forward to participating in the future.
Thanks to Cory Smith for this community. I think it is great to have something like this.
Regards to all.
Gerald.

 

[Dave at clg]

Hello All

Hello All

Hi everyone, my name is Dave. I work at a print shop in the far west suburbs of Chicago.
We currently have 2 25" Heidelburg MO's, CTP, full bindery and mailing services. I am the
manager of the the prepress department which has 3 other full time designers/production people. We have been getting into digital printing more and more over the past 5 years. We are currently going through the test drives with both Xerox and Canon and thats how I found this forum.

 

[David Ingram]

Hello Print Planet!

Hello Print Planet!

Hi!

I'm David Ingram
Currently a graphic Designer / Operator/ Consultant at
Concord Graphic Arts, A Commrcial printer here in Concord, CA

I was the Production Manager, and a digital Pre-Press Specialist at Daily Graphics, the Service Bureau in Walnut Creek, CA from 11/1993 to 3/2005. After being a caregiver to my mom for 3.5 years, IM BACK IN THE PRINT GAME!

Graduated Cal Poly (Pomona) 1993, BA in ART with a graphic Design Concentration, Minor in Marketing. Worked the Service bureau thing for 11+ years, from Postscript level 1 to Agfa Proofs, to Matchprints, Color Keys, Presswise Trapwise, Preps. I have done thousands of real world print jobs for prepress and have been active in printing since before the DTP revolution caught on.

Currently my position as a designer/operator/consultant at a busy commercial printer has been a good fit. We use OSX, Prinergy, Preps and output to kodak thermal plates on a Trendsetter 800 II quantum.

Ask me any question you have I also taught Introduction to Graphic Design at Diablo Valley College (DVC, in Pleasant Hill, CA) Focusing on QuarkXPress, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

 

[Sensei]

Introduce Yourself

Introduce Yourself

Hi all,
I have been Working in a prepress department for 10 years as a Digital workflow Specialist. I Been using Scitex, CREO,Kodak for the past few year. I have installed, 1 Prinergy Connect workflow, 2-Magnus800 X speed, 2-LotemQuantum X-speed, 1-Dolev800, 1-Konica Minolta Konsensus Pro, 1-Xerox 1250, 4-HP5500 Designjet, Chomaset P330, ChromaGraph S3900, 1-EverSmart ProII. 1-RIPRO Archive System. 2 JukeBox for AIT-2 and AIT-3. Brisque4 and 5. GMG color management and HP-Inkjet Proffer. Currently i am Using Fuji-LHPJ II plate.
I been deal with pressman all this year, i just want to share with your, i don't like them at all. We have 30+ Hidelberg Press Mechine, so on Biding and and Folding.

So, i think this will get u know more about me!
Sensei.

 

[Flaneur]

The long road

The long road

Hello. I'm a self taught, freelance graphic designer out of Richmond, Virginia with about 5 years under my belt. Got into the game through a simple lie. An owner of a resteraunt overheard me telling someone I was looking to go into advertising. I have an extensive creative writing background and was honestly looking to become a copy writer. He asked me if he could pay me to do some in-house poster work. Considering I was very poor at the time, I shouted "of course!" before I could even swallow the lump in my throat. Borrowed my roommates laptop, "found" a few programs, and somehow cobbled together five posters which he loved. References started rolling in and now five years later I somewhat know what the hell i'm doing and marvel to no end at where I am now. I primarily do band collateral and help independent businesses and entrepreneurs with print work for cut-rate prices...considering they can barely afford the ad placement to begin with. Been offered a handful of seemingly amazing positions at ad firms along the way and turned them all down...because I firmly believe any professional environment will eventually turn itself into a middle-school playground. All the back-stabbing and general subversive nature of the environment. I knew if I didn't really mind working hand to mouth for a while, I would not compromise any of my creative vision and eventually the money would follow.
I recently became creative director of a non-profit arts magazine out of Boston. Tentative launch in late 2009. I guess they trust in whatever vision I have to "catch-up" on a mountain load of print industry knowledge. Literally have to learn three extra careers within a year. Which leads me to PrintPlanet via the text Realworld Print Production (which is pretty amazing for those with a strong base of design knowledge though lacking in the print production world). So far the forums look solid. Looking forward to asking long strings of very basic questions and getting overwhelmed by very practical advice...diving in....and then filling in the gaps with subsequent questions. It's the best way to learn.

 

[Jazzkie]

A big hello to one and all here. I'm Jazz , the newbie to begin with.
I hail from Singapore and I reckon I'm one of the youngest here. 79 is my birth year.
A sheer twist of fate led me to the printing industry. Started out in 2005 as a Marketing Executive
for a Japanese printing company, not so much on hands on preinting, but mainly doing the Editing,
copywriting, where we then hand the films over to our printer to print.

In 2008 I joined a Printing house, and boy, was I so lost. I know nothing so to speak, only the basics of
printing. I.e: Printing requires 4 colours, CMYK, and DTP is the section where the artwork is done up before ripping...basic offset printing knowledge. I have so so much to learn. I can say I know nuts about the back-end workflow and processes, Plates, Films, engines, machines etc..

And so I'm here, Yup, worked for 3 months, and have since quitted and I'm back on track to where I left off. Back to the print industry, but selling our services instead. I really hope to learn alot here from all of you here, which I believe will turn out to be good mentors.

Kindly pardon my newbie-ness. I know some of the questions which I would be asking are just Duh...!
Thanks in advance to all!

 

[tparker]

tparker intro

tparker intro

I am a mac operator with 30 years plus in printing now doing mostly prep for flexo and using Artpro to rip and sending those files out to printers.

 

[mschilling]

Martin Schilling

Martin Schilling

I work in Toronto (actually Mississauga) at Schawk as a prepress operator using a mac. We have an esko backend here as well as the Backstage/Deskpack tools for Illustrator. This looks like a great forum, and hopefully I can contribute to it, as well as glean some answers to everyday problems.

 

[lynnz]

Welcome Martin! I'm sure you can help me some issues in the very near future.
lynn