"camera-ready original"

[Al Geist]

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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