Pitstop Server?

[stargate]

Anyone using Pitstop Server?

Do you like it? Is it worth the price?

I am thinking about buying it for use with Rampage Rip.

Derek

[PeterKleinheider]

Originally Posted by stargate

Anyone using Pitstop Server?

Do you like it? Is it worth the price?

I am thinking about buying it for use with Rampage Rip.

Derek

Hi Derek,

what is the intended use?

I use it, have used it for years. Love it. Very powerful tool.
Auto correction is great - if you can write an Action List, Server can automate the correction via your Action List with a hot folder.
Not using Rampage but, I can see PS Server as a great tool for any shop / workflow. It can't do everything, but certainly has it's strong points.

For instance, you could have CSR's drop PDFs into a "CMYK", "SpotColor" or "B&W Printing" hot folder to preflight and/or auto correct before the PDF even hits Prepress...
Just a few thoughts to get the ball rolling.

Vee

[stargate]

Purpose?

I am using PS workflow with Rampage now. We suppose to preflight mostly application files we get from clients with FlightCheck. FlightCheck is not automated and some of my users still just don't preflight incoming files (either routine, not enough of time or just laziness?). Anyway, I would like to automate this so everyone would have to check and correct some issues. I am thinking about a switch to PDF workflow - (receive PDFs from clients or make PDFs from client supplied application files) and use Pitstop Server as a preflight tool that also fixes some basic stuff like: turns off overprint for white type etc.

Derek

[PeterKleinheider]

Derek,

there are numerous PDF workflow's out that perform what you want. PitStop is one of them. I always liked PitStop as an editing tool, but I never liked it for Preflight and Colour-Conversion. Back then we used preflighting technology from callas software for our PDFs - we also had PrintReady with Prinect and MetaRip - but we had to preflight before the PDFs hit the workflow. The nice thing, Adobe has licensed callas's preflight technology for their Preflight tool. This was great in my eyes since I could give our preflight profiles to everyone who had Acrobat Pro to run preflight and get exactly the same result as our automated preflight. Also - we did not need PitStop on every Acrobat Desktop for preflighting.

And - it is damn fast (right Matt ;-) )

Why I'm writing in the past - since one year I work for callas software (and still have PitStop PlugIn installed)

I know that you asked about opinions on PitStop server. My opinion - PitStop is a great PlugIn for interactive changes and for some very special tasks. For most automation tasks (also corrections and specially - colour conversion) you should also look for other solutions before you make your decision.

my 2 cent

I'd agree, the main thing PS Server is NOT good for is color.
But everything else.... it's pretty damn good at.
Vee

[stargate]

What else is OUT there in the Pitstop Server price range?

I need automation...Hot Folders etc.

For now I just downloaded demo and I am learning Pitstop and Pitstop Server

Derek

[mattbeals]

All right... I wasn't going to comment but since someone dragged me into the conversation... Peter... :wink:

For sheer convenience and flexibility PitStop is top dog. You get everything in one product. You get an incredibly flexible tool when you add in action lists. I've done some really esoteric things with PitStop Server. Crazy stuff, really crazy stuff. But it's color handling an entirely different subject. You can do things with color that you can't in any other program like remapping, replacing and such. Unfortunately how they handle color transformations is less than stellar. Still. I love PitStop Pro and Server. I've been using it for better part of 10 years now.

(Relatively) recently I discovered the Callas tools and have been thoroughly impressed!

As Peter said Callas pdfInspektor was OEM'ed by Adobe in Acrobat 6 and beyond. pdfInspektor is absolutely the most thorough preflight tool around. To say otherwise is folly. Not to mention every desktop with Acrobat 6 Pro and newer has the engine. When it comes to the server version, pdfInspektor CLI (CLI - Command Line Integration), it is exteremely fast. Spooky fast even... One of the best features besides the various kinds of reports is that the CLI module is multi-threaded. PitStop is single threaded.

Callas pdfCorrect CLI (and the plug-in) are powerful no doubt. They don't necessarily have the bredth of corrections PitStop does. Partially because they don't have a technology like action lists. BUT what they can do is most useful and the CLI too is multi-threaded.

Callas pdfColorConvert CLI (and the plug-in) is the gold standard of color conversions on the desktop. And to a certain degree some server tools. The plug-in makes some assumptions about how the color conversion should happen (little things that aren't a big deal) and therefore makes it extremely useful, powerful and super easy. It's like four mouse clicks and it's done. pdfCC can also find RGB gray images and cnovert them to K, separation black or device gray. Apago PDF Enhancer Server is the only other one that can. And what's the recurring theme? Multi-threaded application.

They bundled with the CLI tools pdfAutomator which turns the CLI tools into hotfolder based applications. The multi-threading goes beyond just running multiple instances, like two or three. With pdfAutomator you can run up to 10 of each. That's each of the CLI modules. So it's possible to have theoretically 30 simultaneous processes going just using those three CLI's. We haven't touched on the other CLI modules yet either... I've been able to get three of anyone to go at a time on my poor little dual-core HP and PB G4.

Price wise there's a definite difference. Callas builds purpose built applications. You can buy them as a bundle and tie them together, no problems there. But the difference becomes secondary or tertiary to how much productive you can be. But you have to weigh that against how much you use PitStop actions. So there's a balance you have to strike.

Those are the best two server based preflighting tools that are available. Some situations the Callas suite makes the most sense, others PitStop does. It requires a careful examination of what you are intending to do. It's never just as simple as "I want to preflight PDF's." There's always at least one underlying issue that is to be resolved. We would have to talk specifics and review your workflow to make any sort of real decision one way or the other. Both are great, but in different ways. If you're interested in setting up some demo's I'd be happy to work with you.

I love my guys at Enfocus, they better realize that by now. And I love the guys at Callas too.

[stargate]

Well, I have used Pitstop but not Callas. What I like about Pitstop is that it is one plugin not five or fifteen plugins. Also I don't feel comfortable with CLI. I prefer GUI.

- When you say Pitstop is slower than Callas - how much slower? 50%?

- Pitstop is not good for color? - Can you be more specific? (color conversions from RGB to CMYK or finding and replacing other colored objects specified in actions?

- How does Callas work? - Like Pitstop Server?
I planned to get 17" Intel iMac, install Acrobat 8 Pro with Pitstop and Pitstop Server on it. Do you need to have Pitstop pro on the same Mac that is running Pitstop Server or I can make the actions somewhere else (my MacBook Pro) and just copy them to Pitstop (or import)

- Does Callas have Actions? How is automation setup? network shared HotFolders?

- I don't understand the difference between Callas plug-in and CLI.

- Does CLI means that you have to configure it in Terminal?

Derek

[mattbeals]

Slower is relative. Slower because it (PitStop Server) is not multi-threaded. Slower because it is not as efficient. What percentage, can't really nail that down because of the various files, sizes, contents, etc. Some of my tests on my PowerBook G4 and HP CoreDuo 1.6GHz laptops show that the Callas suite is significantly faster, others show it's about on par. Just depends. If you're doing preflight only, pdfInspektor CLI is "spooky fast". pdfCorrect is pretty fast too. Again, just depends. I may have tested extreme files that are overly large or otherwise overyly complex for what most day-to-day files really look like. Again, pdfInspektor CLI is "spooky fast". I had to wonder if it was even scanning the files at all. Rest assured it was and the reports were quite detailed.

No, it's not great for color conversions. Pleasing color, generally yes. Critical color or "sophisticated" color no. I don't like the way they handle color in Server 4 or Pro 7. It's not bad, it really isn't. It just doesn't work the way I think it should. And that's just my personal opinion. Does it work, most certainly. Is it as good as other tools? No in certain, specific circumstances.

Actions cannot be written in Server, only processed. Actions and preflight profiles can be written anywhere and loaded on the server. Callas has a hot folder automation program called pdfAutomator that works similarly to PitStop Servers configuration for hot folders.

The Callas plug-ins are the means to create the configurations for the CLI editions. Except for pdfColorConvert CLI which doesn't share configurations between the plug-in and the CLI module. You can do all the configurations in the CLI but you don't have to. That's why they have pdfAutomator. If you're a geek by all means use the terminal or command line interface. Me, I like the GUI. Maybe I'm just lazy that way....