"camera-ready original"

[Al Geist]

Poshedly, Ken wrote:

>"Camera-ready" goes back to pre-desktop publishing days, when
>newspapers, magazines, etc., were produced by using a special camera to
>photograph a board of the exact size of the desired page. The board had
>on it separate strips of paper of typeset material that were stuck on
>via hot wax. All the headlines, body text, photos were attached
>separately.
>  
>

Spot color and full color images were handled a bit differently. In 
those cases a separate plate was made for each spot color, or if process 
color were used, different plates were made for each process color used 
to make the spot color. Color images required three addition plates 
beyond the black plate-magenta, cyan and yellow. The printing process is 
still used today; however, the colors are separated and the plates made 
electronically.

>After all the stories, photos, etc., were in place, that board was
>"camera-ready" and was sent on to the next step where it was
>photographed, a negative produced and a metal plate was made for the
>printing presses. (Do you know what "printing presses" were? <grin>)
>  
>

Printing presses are....they are alive and well, just not used as much 
in the technical writing world because most of our stuff is short run 
and constantly changing.  However, even that is changing. I've sent high 
quality PDFs to a printer for short run projects (less than 2,000 
16-page manuals) and got back exceptional results. They used the PDFs to 
directly burn (make) the printing plates. This is the norm today....but 
printing presses are used for the final output.

>Today, it just means clean output from your laser printer of material
>you've done by desktop publishing - your output is literally
>"camera-ready", that is suitable for further photocopying.
>  
>

Not necessarily....it means clean output with all the images imbedded 
for your laser printer, if that is the intended output. If the output 
includes color images, and you want them to look good after printing, 
then don't expect a standard photocopier to do them justice.

Al

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Al Geist
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