Re: Printing/Typesetting Nostalgia Site
I have actually been on the hotmetal web site, and it's really enjoyable to take a trip down amensia lane.
I started in the family business of newspaper printing over 20 years ago.
My grandfather used to have 3 linotypes (before my days here, but I still remember him melting lead and yelling at the machines from when I was a kid). I learned to make colour seps on ground glass with rotating screen angles, had coat plates, and rub them up by hand.
Those were the days that separated the men from the boys (or women from the girls). I am on of the biggest geeks you may meet, but I cannot agree enough about how the new kids today should at least have some kind of printing knowledge.
Go ask any of them what a halftone is (aside from the filter in Photoshop). They don't understand the nature of the beast, so they assume that the computer will solve every problem. We print newspapers, and the best thing to happen to printing is the computer.....
It is also the worst thing to happen to printing.
I refuse to go CIP3 (of CIP4) with our press, because I don't trust a pressman with clean hands.
I said pressman, not press operator. Printing, despite all technical improvements is still an art, and should be treated with that respect.
It used to take hours to strip up a 4 colour job (usually only 1 or 2 forms, since getting seps made was so expensive). Today, I can have 5 forms of colour on plates in less than a half hour. I must admit that our CTP device has made us somewhat lazy, but that allows my pressman and prepress staff to spend a little extra time checking out the plates. At least they know what the plates should look like, due to their experience in old school platemaking.
sorry about the rant, but ink runs in my veins, and while technology is a necessity today, It allows too many people who have no business being in prepress or print to be there. You used to be able to tell who knew how to strip if they had the touch......cutting a rubymask without touching the mylar underneath......man I miss that!