Why I go to .PS instead of exporting to PDF

[mattbeals]

Exactly what Leonard said. From a printers point of view 1 and 3 could be taken care of by a good online proofing system.

 

[Steve_S]

Neo is an awesome tool - we use it daily to fix customer PDF's, and occasionally to do "magic" tricks to nasty files. Trapping, transparency, color edits, image edits, type - all covered. It is not for everyone, as the initial $ is stout. We're an Odystar user, so the pairing works well for us. Also, it is Mac only. I believe PitStop Extreme (looks like a a dumb-down version) can be had in Windows format for less $, but that reduction comes with less features.

The points you cover could be taken care of with a reasonable PDF workflow build. We take care of them with Odystar using action lists in PitStop and can also use some of the other gateways to individually resolve those steps. We rarely ever make PS - just an added step.

 

[Tech]

Gregg,
I assumed you are require to supply black plate for text only just like we do. Our solution requires a strict practice by designers to place black text on separate layer from art layer. If during early design stage they knew the title would be co-edition/subright, designers are requires to set all text to spot black. It may sound logical but I don't like our solution [not my idea]. It create "busy" work for everyone. It kicks prepress responsibilities to designers [a lot more to the story I'll save it for next time] who are trained to be creative and hates this process of preparing files to "prepress" only to have it "prepress" again.

Frankly, I prefer remapping the simple black text plate in Acrobat Pro... it takes minutes and I don't have to keep reminding designers to separate their text on separate layers or set spot black. Simply solution for simple problem. I do agree with Leonard and Matt. A better solution is one that is more efficient not more steps. That said, I too still use .ps > distiller sometimes. Whatever works, I like to keep all working solutions ready.

 

[mattbeals]

You know, depending on what is required it would be rather trivial to use callas pdfToolbox or PitStop Pro to select specific objects and put them on their own layer. Again, depending on further criteria those objects can be set to over print, layers can be turned off, etc. There is a lot of flexibility here in the workflow that doesn't necessarily put the burden on the design phase.

Now, if you are working in a layered InDesign workflow you could look to PDF/X-4p. Or again you can use callas pdfToolbox and PitStop Pro to make PDF/X-4p files.