WORRIED! What will the future be for Prepress?

[Sally]

I had to think about this one awhile. We recentlyupgraded at work, we have no IT to speak of so I decided to peek on the web for help. The results were seeing the tip of an iceberg that we seem to be heading towards at high speed. My first thought was PANIC! Find New Job Skills And Start Applying Now.
Second thought is this. As they say, Rome was not built in a day. Neither is prepress going to vanish overnight. The most important thing, as has been said, is you are aware that you need to take action and are willing to do it. You are not desperate. You DO have a job that is paying the bills right now. So you have a nice nest from which to grow and expand your skills in the industry. It IS confusing where to start. I'm going to focus on what I have in the shop since I have the materials at hand to learn from. Then its time to push where I can go from there. Database skills are looking pretty high priority.
15 years ago I was told books will no longer exist in 5 years. I asked, what about people that cant afford computers? Schools and textbooks? Or technophobes that don't want a computer? In my case, you sure can't package apple juice in a palm pilot. Messy, I dare say. :P Printing is not going to go away due to the same rut that keeps people from learning new job skills and because it's not just about books or newspapers.

[soilworker]

I feel that Sally and Sparky are both correct in their posts. In Sparky's case, his comment about pre-multi-media makes perfect sense to me. I suppose that my post pertaining to what premedia is was a bit closed minded as I work in a 95% print atomosphere. That is how premedia works where I am. But hey, I'm still the new guy. Anyhow, the technologies will always change and if we can stay on top of these technologies and be willing to change with the tides, whether they be print or other media oriented, I think we'll all be employed for a long time to come. Sally's point is correct as well. Printing can't go anywhere, there is just too much that depends on it. The apple juice from a palm pilot analogy is a perfect example. What will change is how it's all approached hence the premedia involvement. So, we can all relax and focus on what we do now and learn more as it comes our way. It'll be a long strange trip but I'm certainlly up to the challenge. I love this business too much to walk away and do something else.

[wazeygoose]

To all those a little worried about the future in prepress .....

I came into the industry as a 16 year old in 1969 as a hot metal compositor and found within 2 years the industry was dying on its feet. The quialifications I had in compositors' work and letterpress printing were wiped out over night.

I retrained as a paste up comp and camera op, but not being satisfied with this took some typing lessons in my own time, being the only man in a class with 15 women. I passed the course as a touch typist and when the opportunity came applied to be a keyboard man.

I got my opportunity on an IBM Selectric composer typewriter and by 1978 had moved on to Compugraphic Editwriter Photosetter, followed by various other Addressograph, Itek, Scitex and finally Linotronic Photosetters.

In 1986 the Linotronic 300 was made into a slave and we bought our first Mac and RIP and I retrained with Pagemaker 1.0, Illustrator 1.0 and an early form of Freehand.

We then progressed through various software, including Quark until we installed Linocolor and started our own colour seps in 1989.

Since then I have moved on to accommodate various imagesetters and scanners and this last year installed Agfa ApogeeX with an Excalibur 45 and auto plate manager.

So what's the point of all this. Well, the printing industry has changed more in the past 30 years than it ever did in the previous 500, and as the industry changes you too must change.

I'm now 52 and still working away hands-on in design and prepress and running a very busy department.

My advice to all you worriers out there is: accept the new technology, adapt and be flexible; get to know as much of your systems as possible; if your company is being left behind and you see the opportunity of learning something new elsewhere, take it; and above all invest in your own skills whenever possible.

36 years on I'm still battling on. Take the opportunities when they come, and they will do, and you'll still be working in 30 years too.

Wazeygoose.

[prepress_brillance_43]

wazeygoose>
...from someone out of school only three years and a whole future ahead of me, "Well put. That was inspiring." I'm glad to see if I just work hard and learn, I'll always have opportunity in a business that I already love deeply.

[pressman2]

Hey wazeygoose,

I lived through a lot of those days. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

[Cornbread]

Prepress will be here for a long time to come, I think you may have to redifine it's meaning along the way though. The Print world is not just Magazines and Books. For instance All those posters in the Malls and Video Stores have to come from somewhere. We may all find ourselves hidden in the backrooms of Design And Advertising Companies ,as the red headed step children of the the industry, but "Creative" people rarely have the ability and or patienence to make something work that is not "Cooperating". I myself started as a stripper and I "Know" quality expectations have declined dramatically over the years but I don't see how the small to medium run market could be shipped over seas. It would be to expensive to ship everything internationally. And then there is the time lines required, web work might become much less prevelant as most of this is long runs of the same thing and could be printed further in advance.

And if I am wrong you could always sell Pina Coladas on the Beach. :lol:

[duck]

What if prepress is still the same for many years to come...
and I'm still stuck in it!
That's an even scarier thought :?

And if I am wrong you could always sell Pina Coladas on the Beach.

I was shooting for WalMart Greeter, but the beach idea sounds pretty good too!

[Cornbread]

hmmm............... that is scary............. now where did i put that Lottery ticket?

[hotmetal]

Originally Posted by wazeygoose

My advice to all you worriers out there is: accept the new technology, adapt and be flexible; get to know as much of your systems as possible; if your company is being left behind and you see the opportunity of learning something new elsewhere, take it; and above all invest in your own skills whenever possible.
Wazeygoose.

Exactly. Learn everything you can. Keep a notebook at your side and write down everything the old timers tell you because a month from now you'll have forgotten it and a year from now you'll suddenly need to know it again.

Little bits of things the old strippers and platemakers told me years ago about double-burns and stay-aways and process traps and rich blacks and ghosting and take-off bars and all kinds of stuff you won't hear about in vo-tech class pops into my head every day while I'm slogging through this stuff, because no matter how far the technology has gone, you still need to get the work out to the pressmen.

And take notes on the new stuff, too. Yesterday's new font format rumor will turn into tomorrow's job from hell. We laughed at Truetype, we laughed at Multiple Masters. Some people are laughing at OpenType even as we speak. I wouldn't do that if I were you...