Re: "camera-ready original"

Subject: Re: "camera-ready original"
From: Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
To: Susan Hogarth <hogarth -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:15:56 -0500

Susan Hogarth wrote:

I am writing a proposal and one of the requirements in the statement
of work is to provide: "a camera-ready original and electronic copy on
computer disk".

I'm afraid I am almost completely a product of the digital age. I see
this phrase ("camera ready") often and have only a very vague idea of
what it means. Is it just a really clean copy on good paper? Should I
describe the paper, the dpi, etc?

It depends....is your output black and white, or do you have a lot of color (spot color, images, etc.)? If your output has no color, then you can probably get away with imbedding any black and white images in the document, ensuring that they are already halftone, so a printer can take the pages and make printing plates without additional work. If your output has color, then you have a whole different ball game, but thanks to the "digital age" even that isn't as difficult as it used to be. In a previous job, camera-ready meant a high quality PDF because that's what the printer wanted.

The problem here seems to be a definition of camera ready. Wikipedia says that "A Camera Ready hard copy is a printed copy of a document/graphic that is requires no additional work to be to it before copies are to be made," but there is more to it than that. If they want it done the "old fashioned way," then it means layout sheets, wax paste ups, litho overlays, etc. I don't know of anyone who does that stuff anymore. Will the publication be copied on a laser copier, or printed by an offset printer? Do they want the black and white images pre-screened and imbedded? Do they want the color images as CYMK or RGB images and as TIFF, PSD, JPG or some other format? Of do they just want something they can run off on the office copier, which means quality is really not that much of a concern.

I would suggest getting a clearer definition of the term from whomever issued to request for the proposal. They should be ale to tell you what they mean so you could respond properly.

Al

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Al Geist
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References:
"camera-ready original": From: Susan Hogarth

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