Synopses & Reviews
Sharpen your skills in all aspects of desktop publishing, with the Pathways to Print series! Pathways to Print will provide you with the critical guidance and techniques you need to know, from technical subjects such as scanning and trapping to more abstract legal and ethical issues facing desktop publishers. Written in down-to-earth language and loaded with screen captures and illustrations, each of the eight Pathways to Print books gives you step-by-step instructions to produce the high quality end products you want.
Synopsis
Today, designers and production artists are addressing the technical prepress aspects on the desktop that traditionally were handled by skilled preprint specialists. This series focuses on some of the more common tasks that designers need to know. The complete series includes all eight modules described here.
About the Author
Robin McAllister has been speaking about and teaching others to create effective pages since before Desktop Publishing was invented. Of course, it was a lot harder to do then.
In the process of teaching others, he's written a lot of "how-to" guides and training manuals - starting with how to mark up copy mechanically, and proceeding through sophisticated page layout techniques. He is a contributing editor for FreeHand Graphics Studio Skills 5.5 (Hayden Books). Add to that a hundred or so - articles for magazines and newsletters, and presentations of one sort or another to literally thousands of people and you get the idea that he's committed to the industry. Has been, in fact, since the late 1960s.
He is a recognized speaker at leading seminars in the United States and internationally. Robin views himself as a publishing educator, giving attention first to what is going to get the job done - including an interaction of all the disciplines involved in the publishing process. His presentations and training sessions focus on productivity and following effective publishing protocols rather than showing which buttons to push.
In addition to other activities, Rob is the forum leader for America Online's Desktop and Web Publishing Forum. He is a Senior Editor for Print On Demand Business and Print On Demand Solutions and is a regular contributor to Electronic Publishing magazines. His emphasis is on page layout and graphic arts service provider matters, coupled with legal, ethical and business issues.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO DESKTOP PUBLISHING. A realignment of responsibilities. What you need to know before you ever sit down. Designing for efficiency and effectiveness. Type and text. Preparing graphics. Efficient and effective scanning. Coping with color. Preparing documents for hi-res imaging. Legel and ethical considerations. DESIGN FOR PRODUCTION. Designing for efficiency and effectiveness. Paper and design. Working with color. Design dos and don'ts. Designing with text. Preparing graphics. TYPE MANAGEMENT. Type basics. Font technologies. Type and printing. Managing fonts on the computer. Managing type in documents. Type that looks good. Font foundries and distributors. SCANNING AND IMAGE MANIPULATION. Scanning basics. Setting up the system. Scanning line art. Scanning grayscale images. Compensating for imperfections. TRAPPING. The need for trapping. Basics of trapping on the desktop. Trapping by design. Trapping in illustration programs. Trapping in Adobe Photoshop. Trapping in QuarkXPress. Trapping in Adobe PageMaker. Conclusion. COLOR. Making desktop color work. How we look at color. Color systems. Calibrating color. Color management systems. Vectors, rasters and images. File formats and data compression. QUALITY ASSURANCE. Managing quality: An overview. QA in the production environment. QA in the output environment. Cooperation assures satisfaction. PostScript errors: Basic fixes. THE BUSINESS SIDE. Business and legal considerations. Setting up for business. Creating forms that work. The client chase. Legal and ethical considerations. GLOSSARY.