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[Gregg]

Great post! And everytime I read one of your post's Techboy I realize how similar our jobs, and the issues we run into are.

I share you frustration with every print vendor having their own set of custom distiller settings (not to mention .ps settings). We have about 8 US vendors and, 1 in Mexico, 1 in Italy and several in the Far East. About 3 years ago I tried to do the right thing and contact all of them to get their custom settings (both PDF and PS). So there I was with a ridiculously long list of job options and about 3 reams of paper explaining each printers PS settings. I never bothered to pay attention to the PS settings, I just looked for the similarities and stuck with that (12 pt offset for crops, 1" or 30mm larger paper size than the actual trim, things like that). I did however make sure I ripped every PS to the proper job option. Then the bottlenecking began to take place. Not always did I know the printer for a specific job that I was prepping, so I would have to contact the production controller and get that info. If they were out, or away from their desk, it just meant time lost. So I created my own Distiller settings and had all of our printers agree to use them. It took a while for all the vendors to get back to me with the agreement but it made my life so much easier. As Matt mentioned, the Press Quality setting is good, that is actually the setting that most of my Asian printers prefer. All of the custom setting are usually just a minor tweak to that (image compression, font subset, things like that).

As Joe and Matt mentioned, you need to dictate a little to the printer, you want to adhere to their guidelines as much as possible, but if it is unreasonable then try to come to a middle ground with them. If they are not willing to work with you on it, then find another printer. Especially, as you mention, the printer that cannot do their own trapping!!! I set my own overprints, but as far as CT to LW trapping I leave that up to the printer.

Techboy, I too (well me and my assistant), are the ones that rips all the PDFs, flightchecks all the files etc. (on top of a million other things!!). I actually prefer it. At the end of the day, if you are the one who is responsible for the files being sent to the printer than it is best that you are the one creating those files. Let the designers focus on being creative, we are here to do the techwork.