CompuServe Messages

Michael, As an imagesetter operator, and as a former purchaser of imagesetter output and now as a consultant re imagesetter output (I am about to give a 3 day seminar here on Maui as a result of popular demand!) I recommend that you advise your customers NOT to use either the 'Negative' or 'Mirror Image' settings. You are only asking for trouble and will unintentionally mislead those whom you advise to use these settings. I appreciate the fact that you and your service bureau have apparently gotten comfortable with the combination of settings that you have indicated. I also appreciate the fact that _theoretically_ these settings should, especially in the hands of someone who understands _both_ PostScript well and the mechanics of the photomechanical reproduction process result in predictable output. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the real world things don't always work as they should. I wrestled with this problem for quite a while, insisting to myself that if I put the correct instructions into the PostScript file, that the PostScript output device would faithfully obey the input stream. This is one of the situations in which communication between the creator program and the behavior of the PostScript output device just cannot be taken for granted. Take one of your files and send it to a number of different service bureaus. Give them no instructions, other than to output the file. The results will be a mix of results – probably 70% will have the wrong combination of Negative/Mirror attributes. Anything less than 100% reliability is unacceptable. The reason for this problem is not PostScript itself, which actually _is_ 100% reliable. It is the result of several years of general confusion regarding how to teach a suddenly exploding population of otherwise intelligent, but inexperienced (in printing industry matters) computer users just what Negative Image, Right-reading Emulsion Down, Right-reading Emulsion Up, Mirror Image, Reverse, Inverse, Horizontal Flip, Vertical Flip, Normal Image, etc. actually [ MORE ]