Dot Scan and RIP Image Output

In newspaper publishing, the timeliness of news is a very prominent issue. In the process of imposition of newspapers, some advertisement layouts often appear. The electronic documents provided by advertisers are seldom used in common with the software used in newspaper production. Therefore, many newspaper printing companies require advertisers to provide film to directly paste newspapers and advertising films on transparent substrates during the process of plate making. For printing, printing. This method takes time and effort, seriously affecting the timeliness of news newspapers (because customers use electronic files to output the film takes time, make-up staff collage film also takes time, printing staff also need to deal with the film side of the film marks also take time) .

This is the traditional plate making process flow:

Sticking a film can certainly solve the immediate problem. However, the application of computer-to-plate technology (CTP) has reduced the number of printed pages, improving quality and timeliness. So how do advertisers' ads get into the layout? It is a very unrealistic problem to re-create advertisements when newspapers are made (customers can no longer go to the newspaper editor for proof in the advertising company's approval, there is also a question of production time).

In order to cooperate with the application of CTP technology, many newspaper companies have purchased dot-scanners (COPYDOT). We can use the film provided by the advertiser to scan the image file with a dot-spot scanner and insert it as a picture into the layout during the production process. Due to the high accuracy of the dot-sweep scanners, the loss of film points after scanning is very small, which can meet the needs of newspaper publishing. However, the image files obtained by dot scans are extremely large, and the processing speed, especially the time spent on scanning and registering of four-color films, is even more unbearable. Therefore, these advertisement layouts must be processed in advance so as not to affect the timeliness of newspapers. .

Is there any other feasible way to solve this problem? Have! Moreover, this is a method that we have advocated after the application of CTP technology. We do not require advertisers to provide films, but provide electronic documents. This not only saves the advertising company from filming time, but also reduces the cost of advertising companies. Advertisers provide electronic files for advertisement production to newspapers. They can be finalization files (Pagemarker files, Freehand files, Illustrator files, Coreldraw files, Postscript files formed by these files, preferably internationally popular nowadays. PDF format file). After these documents are sent to the newspaper, they are interpreted by the RIP as an image file and inserted into the newspaper layout. The accuracy, color, and gradation of the files are better than that of the dot scanner, and the processing time can be greatly shortened.

Of course, with the wide application of CTP technology, file transfer between many software will be a very common problem. Major software vendors are stepping up their efforts to increase software upgrades and increase interoperability between various software electronic files. For example, various software file output formats can support PDF, EPS, TIFF, and Postscript formats, and electronic files in these formats. You can use RIP to directly interpret a release or generate a film or form an image file for platemaking or imposition. Of course, we also hope that in the newspaper's imposition software can directly incorporate other software output files (input file format supports the output format of other software), without intermediate process conversion, will greatly improve work efficiency. In this aspect, Feiteng Software has made a great deal of improvement and can support some other software output file formats. Because the internal operating mechanism of each software is not necessarily the same, or the environment for producing electronic files is not the same, when the output is finally output, sometimes there are some inexplicable mistakes. It is suggested that if these technologies are not fully mature, RIP can be used to interpret the electronic files to form image files as much as possible, and then be included in the imposition layout, and then the CTP output will be more secure.

The dot scan and RIP image output have advantages and disadvantages. The two should be combined and applied flexibly. If the customer provides a film, we use a dot-sweep scanner to scan and form an image file. If the customer provides an electronic file, we can use RIP to explain it. Perform image output.

Source: Shanghai Printing Design Forum