Old school and/or New press ?

[Bigbadlee]

Hi,

I thought I would try a post to see if I can clear up a discussion/aurgument thats been ongoing on my shopfloor. I have been a Printer/Supervisor for 20 years and have ran everything from a platen (remember them!) to a brand new SM74. In this time I have used various inking and dampening systems most of which were manually adjusted. So I believe that the experience I've built up benefits me, even though most of the manual skills on the press are not really needed.

However another Supervisor argues that you could train anybody up (within reason) on a SM74 and after a while (not 20 years!) they could do exactly the same job as someone with experience. The arguement being 'Does 20 odd years of experience on manual presses benefit anyone who runs a press with ink presetting, automatic sheet size/resize, auto pressure setting' etc.

I would really like to hear what you guys think.

Thanks, Lee

 

[Albert Noel]

i think i agree with the other guy. theres alot to learn when everything is manual, but within reason, a person with less experiance should be able to produce the same results with a fully automted press.
thats the whole point of all the automation.. to take all the human error out.
however, if one, or some or all of those systems fail, chances are they wont be producing quality jobs. even with fully automated you still need to take the time to learn the ins and the outs of the trade.

for example, i started as a feeder/general help. once i got to know the characteristics of paper and ink and feeding in general, i was promoted to running a duplicator (heidi qm-46/2, dupe.... press.... whatever you want to call it). once i got to know how to apply ink to that same paper, the skill of ink/water balancing and the way fountain solution and proper pressures and blanket packing and such worked, i was given the opertunity to advance to operating a 5 colour roland. at this point, i have been with the company since 2001, and operating this press for 5 or so years and i regularly produce results equal to and sometimes better than operators on the same press with 15 and 20 years experiance.

 

[nhprinter]

Hi Guys,

I think what some people forget is something that automation can't replace and that's an "eye" for color and quality that's built up with experience. These new guys can slap a densitometer on the color bars all they want, but without being able to look at the job as a whole, how it relates to the proof etc... It mean nothing to me.

I know the new presses are designed to take the human element out of running a press, but if I was hiring for the newest press make I'd still look for someone with a lot of experience.

I can't tell you how many times I've walked over to approve a sheet and had to have the pressman correct color and fit before I even put a glass or densitometer on the sheet. I know that comes from running presses for over 30 years.

On the other hand.....because of the lack of experienced pressman out there....I think we need the automation, but it's sad to see the "old school" way of doing things go away. People look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I use to run all the 4 color work in the shop on a Heidelberg KORD.

Dave

 

[KevinC@EFI]

My opinion is that the less you know about how your presses (or any equipment) work, the more reliant you are on your vendor and their technology. When everything's running well, that experience doesn't have as much value. However, when things go wrong (and they do), having that experience will be the difference between keeping your shop running and waiting for your vendor to show up, diagnose the issue, and hopefully understand/fix it for you.

Many press vendors provide great service - but they don't live on your shop floor. Worse, if your issue is intermittant, it may take them months to track it down - while having you on site full time would certainly help cut that down.

I also agree with the eye for color - as good as automated systems these days are, they're cold and impersonal. Some printing calls for that... but show me an award-winning printer that doesn't have a color guru watching over it and I'd be surprised.

Just my $0.02. Kevin.

 

[Albert Noel]

My opinion is that the less you know about how your presses (or any equipment) work, the more reliant you are on your vendor and their technology. When everything's running well, that experience doesn't have as much value. However, when things go wrong (and they do), having that experience will be the difference between keeping your shop running and waiting for your vendor to show up, diagnose the issue, and hopefully understand/fix it for you.

Many press vendors provide great service - but they don't live on your shop floor. Worse, if your issue is intermittant, it may take them months to track it down - while having you on site full time would certainly help cut that down.

I also agree with the eye for color - as good as automated systems these days are, they're cold and impersonal. Some printing calls for that... but show me an award-winning printer that doesn't have a color guru watching over it and I'd be surprised.

Just my $0.02. Kevin.

i should go back to my reply and say that it really depends on the person.

we've got a premier print "benny" award from a piece i printed. I've got an eye for colour. i guess it depends on how fast you learn, in my case, i learn very fast and printing became my passion and seeing and reading the overall picture fell into place. i still don't have the years of experience that many of you guys have though, but my press doesn't have ink-key presetting or closed loop colour... part old-school, part new-school...

 

[Sfdp2300]

Just because the presses have all this automation doesnt make the short term operator a pressman.. it takes time to be able to identify problems and resolve issues caused by variables such as bad water, bad paper ink problems. I work with a bunch of operators and very few accual pressmen. You can never replace 20 years exprience. Trouble shooting skills are the skills that save the day or the job.

Im sure you all have worked with atleast one pressman who has said "I have forgotten more about printing the you will ever know".....

So next time you see the new guy who thinks he knows his shit grab a knife full of magenta and ask him if he think the ink smells spoiled .... you probably know the rest... or ask him to go get you the left handed screw driver...

 

[otherthoughts]

Hi,

I thought I would try a post to see if I can clear up a discussion/aurgument thats been ongoing on my shopfloor. I have been a Printer/Supervisor for 20 years and have ran everything from a platen (remember them!) to a brand new SM74. In this time I have used various inking and dampening systems most of which were manually adjusted. So I believe that the experience I've built up benefits me, even though most of the manual skills on the press are not really needed.

However another Supervisor argues that you could train anybody up (within reason) on a SM74 and after a while (not 20 years!) they could do exactly the same job as someone with experience. The arguement being 'Does 20 odd years of experience on manual presses benefit anyone who runs a press with ink presetting, automatic sheet size/resize, auto pressure setting' etc.

I would really like to hear what you guys think.

Thanks, Lee

Has the other Supervisor who "argues that you could train anybody up" been a pressman himself for 20 years? I would guess that the answer is no.

I suspect that we can all agree that the learning curve is steepest in the beginning. If the rookie is trained by another rookie, he will in essence have a GED in press-work. I suspect that this is not what "the other Supervisor" had in mind though. If "the other Supervisor" envisioned training the rookie with his best and most experienced pressmen, then I suspect that this fact in of itself denotes the need for experienced pressmen. What he is saying is that if you distill your 20 yrs. of experience down and hand it to the rookie, the rookie does pretty well on most days. Most pressman are secretive, what if the rookie had to learn it all on his own?

I also suspect we can all agree that with little effort most pressmen of any caliber can achieve a 85% quality level product. From the 85% quality level to 100% quality level product, it is increasingly more difficult to achieve and requires increasingly more skill and control. This is also true for anything from the range of sports to astrophysics.

In defense of the other Supervisor, press technology has grown immensely and made consistency, automation and reliability much better. I would liken this to the better equipment athletes have today. Take two equally talented athletes, give one the Old equipment and the other the New equipment. The athlete using the New equipment typically has some advantage over the one using the Old.

But the growth in press technology is still not artificial intelligence. The rookie using current technology typically becomes more and more reliant on the buttons he pushes at the cost of the understanding and skill to do what the buttons do for him on his own. Ultimately trading his absolute skill and understanding in for the efficiency. All in all it is mostly a good trade. Like trading a rotary dial pulse telephone for a push button tone telephone.

I suspect that the elders beat the whippersnappers from time to time when problems foreign to the next generation occur. That is what the elders are there for. In fact I think that this is precisely why this forum is here as well.

And lastly, just for fun I ask this question,

"Why does the Cyan ink typically require a 60% dot to create a mid-tone gray while the Magenta and Yellow inks only need roughly 50%".​

For those of you who know why this is, I simply say to you that I always held onto and valued things that I acquired on my own, not so much with things that I didn't work for.

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Answer !!!

Answer !!!

Hi everyone, the difference is to maintain the "Neutral Balance" -- the Dot Sizes of Yellow,Magenta and cyan required to produce neutral greys of different strengths are not the same, larger dot sizes of Cyan are required to maintain "Neutral Grey Balance"

When equal dot sizes are used for each tonal step this results in a "Muddy Brown" colour.


Regards, Alois

 

[Alois Senefelder]

oooooophsssss!

oooooophsssss!

Maybe I shouldn't have given the answer !!!!!!!!


Alois

 

[otherthoughts]

Hi everyone, the difference is to maintain the "Neutral Balance" -- the Dot Sizes of Yellow,Magenta and cyan required to produce neutral greys of different strengths are not the same, larger dot sizes of Cyan are required to maintain "Neutral Grey Balance"

When equal dot sizes are used for each tonal step this results in a "Muddy Brown" colour.


Regards, Alois

I agree with everything you said Alois.

Perhaps what I really meant to ask is why equal amounts of the subtractive primary colors CMY, result in a "Muddy Brown" color instead of a neutral gray?

Regards
otherthoughts

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Pondering !!!!

Pondering !!!!

Hi I will leave the "Answer" to otherthoughts" - second part of the question, in is reply to me -- to some one else!!!!! and pose one myself -- a " Simple One " --- What is Surface Tension ???

Regards, Alois

 

[otherthoughts]

This is surface tension

This is surface tension

 

[gordo]

Perhaps what I really meant to ask is why equal amounts of the subtractive primary colors CMY, result in a "Muddy Brown" color instead of a neutral gray?

Because CMY inks are not perfect filters of light.

On a side-bar, some have argued, me included, that equal values of CMY - a.k.a. "brown balance" would be a better metric than gray balance on press.

gordo

my print blog here: Quality In Print

 

[gordo]

otherthoughts - A floating Pengö? LOL.
Wasn't Hungary’s Forint predecessor the Pengö, replaced at a rate of 400 quintillion Pengö to 1 Forint?

best, gordon p

 

[otherthoughts]

Because CMY inks are not perfect filters of light.

On a side-bar, some have argued, me included, that equal values of CMY - a.k.a. "brown balance" would be a better metric than gray balance on press.

gordo

my print blog here: Quality In Print

With Cyan being the least efficient filter, hence the 60% dot over the 50% for Magenta and Yellow.

Even though everyone working with color knows that 60/50/50 makes gray. I only had one student in all the scanner training classes I gave answer this question for me. Gordo makes two.

Best Regards
otherthoughts

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Even better surface tension !!!

Even better surface tension !!!

Hi everyone

 

[Bigbadlee]

Thanks!

Thanks!

Everyone,

Well that's what I call a response!

I think otherthoughts gets my thinking. With all of the technology available, a relatively inexperienced operator could give you very good results. However a pressman with years of experience wil give you that extra 10-15% of quality.

I recall showing one of our very lower end operators (5 years exp. and struggling with 1 col black on GTO) the press. I explained to him about ink presetting and suchlike and the response I got was , 'Well anybody could run this!'.

The thing is he probably would have faired better on a 5 col 74 than on a 1 col GTO!

Thanks everyone

 

[amomtaz93]

Hi everybody:

I think academic background is very important once you know the basic ..you can run any machine,But you can not feel colors with academic background so you need both tools and training for your eyes .About working with old technology makes it easy to work with advanced one i agree with that but you still need to learn how to use measuring tools and to give your eyes a chance to have the color feeling......

Regards ...Ahmad

 

[gordo]

With Cyan being the least efficient filter, hence the 60% dot over the 50% for Magenta and Yellow. Even though everyone working with color knows that 60/50/50 makes gray. I only had one student in all the scanner training classes I gave answer this question for me. Gordo makes two.
Best Regards otherthoughts

I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I did not say that equal % of CMY makes gray. I wrote that equal parts of CMY makes "brown" and that "brown balance," rather than gray balance, has been argued by some (including me) as potentially a better metric on press than gray balance.

best, gordon p

 

[otherthoughts]

My humble apologies to Alois and Gordo for being less than clear when stating the questions and replies as well.

Gordo, I was attempting to further refine your initial statement "Because CMY inks are not perfect filters of light" in an effort show the relationship between my original question and my second. I was not addressing the "brown balance" statement. Sorry for not making myself clear.

It looks like I fouled things up more than I helped here. Sorry.

To explain, hopefully with some greater clarity what my intention was and why.

I am the kind of guy that always wants to know why something is the way it is. Especially when I am getting paid for it and shoulder some responsibility for it's outcome.

I firmly believe that the best people in any field take the time to understand how the entire system works and how one part interacts with another. I personally was never content to simply push the button just because everyone said "that's how it's done", I always asked "Why?", Needless to say, I was a pain in the neck to a great many people.

When exceptional people crossed my path, I pestered them with an endless stream of "whys" and soaked up as much knowledge as they were willing to share with me, either that or I had exhausted their patience with me.

As an example, I had been running a 4-color Heidelberg GTO for quite some time in the late 80's and always fighting with fitting the plates. If I were to fit the register marks, typically the images were out, both circumferentially and side to side. Nearly every job was a struggle to find some happy medium. Then one day, after we had hired a new stripper, all of a sudden everything began fit marvelously. Day after day, week after week.

I knew right then and there that the new stripper was someone I needed to talk to and could learn from. I was about 25 yrs old then and of course the new stripper was an older guy approaching 50 years old and had done every type of job you could name from one end of the production gamut to the other, including all the changes that had occurred with time and progress along the way.

This exceptional fellow could do things that boggled my mind. He was equally comfortable in the pressroom and prepress. It was with his help that I made the leap from lead pressman running a Heidelberg MOFPH, to the stripping department and later to become a scanner operator. The grass seemed greener to me in prepress, and in many ways it was.

When I applied for and got hired on with Linotype-Hell as a scanner trainer, they called my employer for a reference. They asked one of the owners "what I knew", he replied to them "I don't know what he knows, but he was the only one that could make things work". In many ways I give credit for that owner's reference to that exceptional fellow who had helped me so much.

I realize that I have strayed a bit here, but I felt it was in keeping with the original question posed by the thread originator, regarding old school and new school.

To get to the chase here. When I was an instructor, I tried to always explain to my students how the button works and why it works along with any caveats. I didn't just want them to become familiar with the buttons on the scanner. I wanted them to better understand the entire system so that they would know both when, as well as, when not to push the button.

One of the questions I asked at some point in every class was, "why does the Cyan require 10% more ink than the Magenta or Yellow to make a gray?". To explain the question further I would add "in the subtractive color space, cyan filters red light, magenta filters green light and yellow filters blue light right? Everyone would agree, so then I would say "why does the cyan ink require so much more to do what the magenta and yellow do with less?", "what's wrong with the cyan ink".

Now mind you some of my student's had been working with color for many years and may have worked for some of the best companies you might care to mention. Only one student of perhaps a few hundred students I worked with answered the question without delay and accurately, "the cyan ink is a less efficient filter of light than the magenta or yellow". That student and I became friends and still are to this day.

To sum up. Without exception, every single student could tell me the numbers that produced gray in their shops, 60/50/50, 60/50/47, 60/49/44 etc. etc. I just wanted them to know the reason why that was. I tried to pass on to them all the favors that a great many people had given me. It seems to me that the world is a nicer and less stressful place when we do our best to help the man who wants to be helped.

I personally learned about ink efficiency and lots more at a GATF class when I was a pressman. I always measured the ink efficiency, trapping, etc of the press samples any ink salesman brought me with a densitometer right in front of him and compared it to the inks I was currently running. I guess I pissed off my fair share of ink salesmen.

Best Regards
otherthoughts