Being slow making it worse??

[Lammy]

Deadlines in this industry have always been a problem. In the last several years it has gotten worse because of the advent of the desktop computer. Computers have given the illusion that it is effortless and instantaneous to process work. More over the mystery of what goes on in a digital prepress work flow, to some, magnifies it even more. Now I say this economy and the lack of work has made that even worse.

In the past few months we have had amazing turnarounds. Mostly because the jobs have been small, and there is nothing else to do. Most jobs consist of a few contract proofs, waiting for an ok, then imposed films. Our two steps in the cycle being completed and delivered in under a few hours each. Hour turn around's!!! To me that in itself is fairly amazing. I can remember when it took hours just to RIP a few color pages.

As good as that is, the down side is now the salesman, supervisors and anyone else not directly involved in the prepress production cycle expect every job to be delivered that quickly, regardless of what's involved.

My case in point. Today at 10 am we received a 44 page, process plus one spot book. At 11 am we received a call where we were told, no one ever asks anymore, that we had to have all 44 proofs done by the end of the day. When the reply was made that we could not do that we were told flatly "That's not good enough". Our reply, "We can't make the computers run any faster, not to mention that for the third year in a row we have the same two hours of corrections to make, that we've asked the client to fix each time.", "Well, you'll just have to do something." That was the end of the phone call.

In the end being able to turnaround smaller jobs as breakneck speeds has done more harm than good I think. I was always under the impression that if we did what we could to help, it would be appreciated and if for whatever reason we were unable to do something, the rare case that it happens, it would be understandable. It appears, however, that NOW is expected, even insisted and SORRY NO, is just not good enough.

I am sad to say, as much as I like my work and as good as I am at it, with the direction the industry is going, painting lines on the road is looking more and more like a viable career change :roll:

[machan]

On bad days I always wish I drove a bulldozer instead.

[CitrusZ28]

Bet that you have the proofs done by the end of the day Lammy! :lol:
Another thing, customer loyalty is becomming a thing of the past as well. Today they are with you, tomorrow they are with shop X because they will save $1.29 on the entire job.

[Lammy]

and yet again. . . . . . this time it's 67 6/6 pages. we can only proof them one at a time cause of the size. FINALLY got the disk at 3pm, Friday. We were supposed to have it at 10 am. Proofs are due 10 am Monday morning. it takes @ 12 minutes to make one proof. you do the math. . . .

UGH!

guess where I'll be all day Saturday. . . . . .

at least we're busy I guess. . . . . not really. not more work than we can do, just not enough time to do it in a normal production cycle. . . . :roll:

[Scott]

I feel your pain... the more you fix things, the more you're expected to fix things. I have customers sending crap pdf's over and over again because they know I have pitstop and can fix things. They have me use pitstop like a god dang page layout program,.. adjusting test, colors, etc. It's total bs. I'm trying to implement the enfocus certified pdf workflow here as a standard. This way when some yahoo sends a crap pdf and it's not 'certified' (heheheh) all bets are off :wink: as far as turn around time. We as prepress people need not be the doormats we have been. It's time for a revolution!!!! Stand up people!!!! We won't take it anymore!!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Scott

[RosieHS]

Last week we received a "crap" PDF four-color, 32 page newsletter. The customer wanted us to build spot varnishes over the "high res" images. Then on top of that they wanted us to color correct images for a second round of color! Geez!

All would have been fair and good if the customer hadn't provided almost useless PDFs. We had to "tweak" the files in Illustrator to ensure a good register between image and varnish elements because the customer's PDF had embedded OPI Comments (among other things).

If only Enfocus PitStop Professional (version 5.04) did not have a bug that corrupts our images whenever we remove OPI Comments. The newer version (6.0.1.0) has this bug as well! I am currently in contact with Enfocus Tech Support on this matter.

[dimitri]

i am with you, and for some reason suddenly cheap printers are used as colourproof, becouse they are cheaper.
then the saleperson tells you every time, to do colourcorrections when he looks at the printout,
or when clients like the printout the demand it should look in print exactly the same.

or when you do a job at home, people are always surprised when you charge them. most think it's fun to do and you like it anyway.

sitting days, doing a website for someone or a brochure. it does not cost me anything, so why should i charge for it.

never met a mechanic who have done me a "quick favour"

[Bart]

If only Enfocus PitStop Professional (version 5.04) did not have a bug that corrupts our images whenever we remove OPI Comments. The newer version (6.0.1.0) has this bug as well! I am currently in contact with Enfocus Tech Support on this matter.

Used to have this problem with PitStop Server but not with Professional - strange!

We used to take the original PDF and refry it to our settings - that would remove the OPI comments as well.

Refry = save a PDF as a PostScript file and reDistill.

[RosieHS]

Originally Posted by Bart

Refry = save a PDF as a PostScript file and reDistill.

Hey thanks! I'll try that!

[Lammy]

Originally Posted by dimitri

. . . never met a mechanic who have done me a "quick favour"

LOL now if only doing most any printing "favor" was quick or easy. My favorite line late has been "When you take you car to a mechanic to you tell him when he's gonna be done too?"