Cross-century technology (I)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many major technological changes affected prepress companies. In the middle and late 1990s, they began to infiltrate into the printing industry. In the new century, more new technologies and products will emerge in the printing industry.
The scanning technology once used by the prepress specialists for image input technology is gradually shifting to designers. This is a result of the simultaneous effects of two factors: the change in work habits and job responsibilities, and the increase and decrease in the quality of desktop scanners.
The launch of a series of new flatbed scanners and drum scanners with varying degrees of intelligence and color management capabilities has enabled designers to obtain the quality of scans obtained by operators of medium skill using electric extensions.
These scanners are Heidelberger's CPS Saphir Ultra 2 CCD and Sailing Angel's EverSmart Supreme and many other products from Screen, Agfa, and Fujifilm. Scanview, Howtek, and Heidelberg are companies that offer flow scanners.
Color Management Although manufacturers have developed many software and hardware tools that support color management, their application in production is limited to localization or within a single department or company.
The long-term goal of color management is to implement color management throughout the entire process with multiple processes involved. The realization of this goal takes a long time, because: First, the implementation of color management requires a very high level of communication between companies and agreements (target agreements, CMS engine agreements, etc.). Second, even if people in a separate department or company need to understand and accept color management substantively, they can work effectively.
Despite this, those who have successfully applied color management still get a smoother, more reliable workflow. More importantly, color management provides a good way to develop deeper cooperation with customers.
Designing Application Software When it comes to printing design software, there is no doubt that Photoshop, I11ustrator, and FreeHand are indispensable tools in the creative process. Although PageMaker has a group of loyal followers, the publishing software that dominates the world is QuarkXPress. Its dominance has begun to be affected by certain factors, including both Xpress's own problems and competition.
In the second half of 1997, Quark launched the long-awaited 4. upgrade, which was the first major upgrade of the software in five years. You may expect that this new version will immediately be put into the mainstream of production, but there are actually many problems. First, Quark's pricing for this software upgrade is between $298-398, a much higher price than many people think it will cost.
Second, the new version of the software has many minor problems. To date, Quark has released four patches to the original software in less than a year. Missing With the increasing stability, more and more people will be willing to accept the upgraded version.
At the same time, Adobe is busy developing a software called Quark killer. The new product developed by Adobe is called K2, which is the first professional publishing software developed by Adobe.
The software has the same type of interface as Photoshop and I11ustrator and was launched in the second half of 1999.
Pre-export verification software Most people who have moved to digital workflows recognize that pre-export inspections are critical. Although the pre-export check can be performed during different processing of the output, many people find that the best time to perform the pre-export check is when the file is passed from the design/creative person to the output producer. Markzware's FlightCheck is one of the more widely used pre-output inspection applications in this field. Extensis also became a competitor in the market due to its Preflight Pro software.
However, with the popularity of data exchange using PDF files, a whole new set of products emerged for pre-export inspection. These products range from systems that are equivalent to manual operations (such as Callas' PDF Toolbox) to highly automated systems (such as EnFocus's DoubleCheck).
DoubleCheck allows the user to create a variety of live folders, which can be combined to check the input PDF file according to the requirements of the specific process. In addition to checking these PDF files, DoubleCheck can solve some of the other problems it finds. (To be continued)