The hardest (file) problem(s) you've ever solved

[samB]

I'm sure we've all seen some interesting problems, so I thought we could have a little fun with this thread. Since these are solved problems maybe we can learn a little something. Here's mine:

Buckslips for a customer that we've done for at least a decade which would always crash the RIP.

I could get them to run 1-up. Back in the film days, I would correct the problem on the light-table or in the vacuum frame by stepping or stripping. Then we moved to CTP and the job came in again. I prayed that the newer RIP could handle it. Nope.

We reluctantly asked the customer if they could think of anything. We tried sending it to the other printing companies we are friendly with. It crashed everyone's RIP. No one could figure out how to get this file through successfully.

I finally did a binary search to find the problem. I deleted 1/2 the elements on the piece, tried to rip it, deleted half of the "bad" half, etc, until I found the elements causing the problem. The files were gigantic and would take 15 min just to see if the RIP succeeded or crashed. I was there almost all night.

There were vector gradients they called "swoops" which were borrowed from a billboard they made. The swoops were well over 100 inches. On the buckslip they were simply linked, reduced, and cropped via InDesign. When I actually reduced the original swoop, the files ripped just fine. (Quite a pain to exactly resize and reposition a curved gradient)

SPECULATION:
Apparently while not a PostScript thing itself, many of the drivers and functions that these companies license have a limitation of 200 inches. The imposed file caused the element to extend beyond 200 inches. I guess that PDF and PostScript internals must not actually reduce the swoops, but instead include them full-size with reduction and cropping instruction.

We all see a ton of "normal" problems every day... but this was a "one-off" doozy of a problem.

 

[dabob]

Well . . . I can't remember all of the files I've fixed . . . but to my memory the hardest job was a label for a nutritional supplement company who wanted their premier product label to be something special - they brought in a piece that was printed on a silver foil laminated to a board backing and then die cut into a box . . . but these were labels for a large bottle . . .And they wanted some of the colors to be pure (to match the PMS book in process color) for logos and such but they wanted the background to have a metallic look.

1st we had to find the paper, finally found somebody 2500 miles away that could laminate the foil to a label stock and then sheet it for us (a 19x25 inch sheet ran us about $1 each)
2nd we had to figure out how to attain the pure pms color on a silver stock . . . that took a double hit of white ink where these objects were and we had to use a two step trap on the
files 1 for the white printer( really fat) and then regular trapping for the process work
3rd running multiple press tests to get the metallic color they were shooting for on the process work

Well after about 6 months of research we figured it out . . . and then after a couple of years they said they cost too much and just went to white paper . . . go figure

and yes sam . .. we have had to do the delete half the file to find the bad elements too . . . a cheep and dirty fix is just to print the file to a postscript file then rip it in Photoshop at 400 + dpi and save the resulting file to impose . . . . works most of the time . . . .

just my 2¢

 

[DCurry]

I'm still using the "delete half" method to troubleshoot, but these days it's to figure out why my variable data job using SmartStream is crashing InDesign. Had one just 2 days ago and got to the bottom of it. Nothing weird with the element in question, so I guess it just got corrupted at some point. It was just a variable text box, so I recreated it and it was fine. For 10 minutes. Then it crashed me again. Seems to be ok now, though!

 

[dabob]

I'm still using the "delete half" method to troubleshoot, but these days it's to figure out why my variable data job using SmartStream is crashing InDesign. Had one just 2 days ago and got to the bottom of it. Nothing weird with the element in question, so I guess it just got corrupted at some point. It was just a variable text box, so I recreated it and it was fine. For 10 minutes. Then it crashed me again. Seems to be ok now, though!

Don't we just love this "stuff" . . . . there is alway another poorly prepared file just around the corner wait to bit us in the arse . . . . but personally I think thats why I have my job . . . I haven't run into that file that I can't find a fix for . . . . even if its a bandaid over whiteout . . . .

 

[BumpFlash]

. . . even if its a bandaid over whiteout . . . .

It's a real pain scraping that dried whiteout off the monitor, though.

 

[abc]

This one really sticks in my mind even though it was many, many years ago.

I was using a Mac II FX pushing mainly Quark files via postscript into a Crosfield 9500 workstation through a Sun Sparc Postscript level 2 Rip with an OPI solution.

The job was a series of holiday brochures for a Cruise line company. It was a really nice job and we'd sent the low res scans back to the customer to place.

Everything went well until we got to the last page of the job, the back page. It took ages to do any thing and kept crashing out the rip.

When we dived into it we found out what it was.

The back page had copies of the 20 other brochures they produced (that we’d also done the repro and film on).
What they’d done was cut and pasted the quark content of all the (20) previous covers into the back page of the one we were working on, and then reduced them to 10% of size.

So effectively we were ripping 20 full out A4 pages with high res images and reducing them to 10% of size.

As they were so small we opened the original quark docs, made eps files, imported them into PShop, reduced them and saved them out as tiffs. Job then ripped in minutes!

Designers huh, gotta love em!

 

[schenkadere]

I had to build a 13 color pasta sauce label on a Scitex workstation before the advent of NLW (New Line Work for those who remember those days) which meant that I was limited to 4 colors per file. In other words I had 4 individual files that had to trap to each other without being able to see them together in a single file. It had CT images, gradients and line art...a real challenge. The same project also included a 12 color, 11 color and numerous 9 color labels, all to be handled in the same fashion. Ah, those were the glory days!

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

1994. Scitex Mac RIP. Had an illustrator file of a credit card with major vignettes all over it. Would not rip to save its life.
Solution: I flipped the file 180 degrees upside down...voila. RIP!

Not quite up to par with these, but still a great anecdote.
I got into this field in 1990 - just as stripping was dying. I worked with a lot of strippers, and I think it helped me more than I can ever comprehend. Traps. Masks. Etc.

Got hit with a digital label concept sixteen months ago. Variable images coming in based on state / sex / and a few other options. HOW to program these to get them to produce thousands of iterations?
Went back to my stripping education. Created a template (X0001) Created "holes" - names the files for the particular "hole" they would strip into. Now, just a bit of programming in GMC Inspire....and BOOM!
Concept from 1990 moved forward to 2014 technology.

 

[Gianni_S]

I think that my worst problem fixing a file is happening today...
(Look at the attachment) Custmer send me this pdf file, text was converted by him into outlines... probably he used a corrupted font or something went really really wrong.
However... now he said "I did the work, you have to fix it, no way!"

 

[Gianni_S]

I think that my worst problem fixing a file is happening today...
(Look at the attachment) Custmer send me this pdf file, text was converted by him into outlines... probably he used a corrupted font or something went really really wrong.
However... now he said "I did the work, you have to fix it, no way!"

 

[Bill W]

Since I started in the is business in 1981, I also agree that being a film stripper before converting the prepress to digital really was helpful. While I can think of many files that have challenged us, I prefer to state this:

I "hate" artists that send me files I have to fix because of time restraints and them thinking it is the printers job to fix for free.
But, I "love" artists that send me files I have to fix because they force me to learn new tricks to fix their files. Tricks I would not otherwise learn because I would never build files that were that (insert your own word here) - Maybe words that end in like, I don't know, ed, or ty.