i shot my foot

[Prata]

hi guys! you won't remember me but a while ago i've changed from prepress (after 12 years on it) to a graphic design company... well it was really a bad call, as a producer (quallity control, budgets, etc.) they wanted me to perform miracles, well when a design is shit there´s really nothing you can do to make it look better, even if printed on gold it's still shit! Basically i didn´t learn anything while i was there, instead i started loosing what i knew.
So now after after 11 months apart from prepress and while i don´t get back on the horse that i slould have never left i´m just wondering if there´s any way to practice (on site maybe) the ctp workflow. I´m still using all the remaining soft (adobe cs, quark, even coreldraw) but my biggest concern is to loose the practice of imposing and all the other steps in a digital workflow... i know it´s a very long shot but maybe some of you heard about kind of a "virtual workflow".

Anyway thanks for your patience. cheers!

[mattbeals]

No virtual flow that I know of. You can build your own to a certain degree by having all the software. But that's probably as good as it gets. That's the sacrifice we all make when we move out of production. I've been out of it for a long time having gone into management and consulting. So sometimes I feel a bit dated. The best I that I can offer to is to keep in contact with people at the print shop you came from and keep talking with the operators at each vendor you use. Watching boards like PPF and mailing lists like PrintPlanet are going to be invaluable. Even if you don't have the software per se it is still extremely valuable to have the knowledge tucked away somewhere. It's pretty easy to re-familiarize yourself with the software if you know what you are looking for.