"camera-ready original"

[Brasel, Russell]

Susan,

"Camera ready" is a holdover from the manual printing days, when artwork
to be published had to be photographed and transferred to a metal
printing plate. (Of course, lithography isn't dead-it's just been
updated, but that's neither here nor there.)   I assume in today's
digital world "camera ready" means the original digital file (which, as
you know, is huge if you're using a camera with over 5 MP), and an
electronic copy means a lower resolution file, which would be suitable
for including in a document or a web page. 

That's my conjecture.  I may be completely wrong.

RGBrasel