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The Non-Designer’s Scan and Print Book
by By Byron Davies — October 2000 Big Blue and Cousins of the Greater Victoria PC Users’ Association http://www.bbc.org - February 22, 2001 at 14:08:39:
Several years ago Consumer Reports magazine reported on a new automobile, saying, “This is the best car we have ever tested.”I feel much the same about this book; it is certainly one of the best discus-sions and explanations of a complex subject that I have ever picked up. I cannot say, “read,” because, while it progresses logically from Introduction to Colophon, it’s more of a reference or cookbook full of choice tidbits—specific answers to particular questions—than a series of lessons.
The authors have been designing, producing, and teaching courses on graphics and associated text material for about forty years between them, and this collaboration has a no-nonsense style that shows their collective experience. We reviewed another Williams book, “The Non-designer’s Design Book;” the present work goes further into the hard-nosed details of what the desktop publisher of (say) a newsletter actually DOES from the starting point with some text and pictures to the end where the printer points to a pile of boxes saying, “There’s your job right there.”
“Before you begin to create your printed project—before you type a headline, or take a photo, before you even turn on your computer—you have to know your final goals…”
There are even a number of suggestions for minimizing the bottom line on the invoice the printer will hand you.
The well-known black-and-yellow “…for Dummies” guides are usually at the beginner level; the “Visual Quickstart Guide” series (also published by Peachpit Press) are aimed at an audience who want fast answers but at a somewhat higher technical level; the Cohen-Williams book’s cover states that it addresses “Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced” levels. While not a tome, it’s quite comprehensive, with 263 pages. There are refer-ences for when it is appropriate to screen previews and web output, but this book’s emphasis is on printed copy; whether on your own inkjet or laser, at the nearest copy shop, or at a commercial printer.
An old bromide states that the best way to choose a computer is to decide what you want it to do for you, choose the software that does it, and only then select the hardware that will run that application. Probably knowing that no one ever was actually that sensible, our authors begin with a parallel suggestion, “Before you begin to create your printed project—before you type a headline, or take a photo, before you even turn on your computer—you have to know your final goals…”
The first chapter specifies the questions the user must ask. The answers may come from a client (perhaps other volunteers in your club, including the Treasurer), various resource providers (the friend with a colour printer, or the format of an existing graphic that’s required), or often simply from one’s knowledge of what’s possible, or not. We are reminded that many jobs need nothing more than a word-processor and a desktop printer, and perhaps a copy shop if we need many copies.
This chapter includes elementary things such as kinds of paper, kinds of folds, signatures, covers, binding, colours; Chapters 2 and 3 continue with discussions of desktop printers and their differences (there is a practical discussion of the PostScript language), and print shop equipment such as imagesetters, drum-scanners, and print shop production processes (some quite esoteric).
The amateur doesn’t have to remember all those details, but it’s very helpful for an amateur to know that explicit explanations are readily available.
The next several chapters cover computer applications, computer colour, raster and vector images, resolution, and file formats. There are delightful bits like “Do not scan as grayscale any line art images that need to have smooth edges,” and “Windows has a BMP format that’s just as stupid as the PICT format on the Mac…Don’t use BMP files in documents that will be professionally output.”
Such statements are always supported with a “why” or with a graphic example, so we’re not left with mere dogma.
Those chapters are almost worth the price of the book because they include excellent discussions of image size, file size, dots-per-inch, lines-per-inch, compression algorithms, compatibility (or lack of it) among image-editing and vector drawing applications and their native formats et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The next major section covers colour, particularly when preparing document for a print shop, with sections on process colour, spot colour, Pantone and colour-matching, and the like; it’s all there.
Following that, we return to the input end, with chapters on scanning, digital cameras, stock photos and clipart, and fonts. Like the first chapters, this section is worth the price of admission. First up are Principles and types of scanners, Scanner Software (resolution, colour mode, scaling, sharpening, coping with different art forms even some legalities we must know). Then come digital cameras, high-end and consumer-level, and how they’re best used, and more information than I knew was necessary about clipart and stock photos, again with regard to the legalities involved. Most of us are familiar with the royalty-free clipart that is included with programs like CorelDraw, but we must not forget that many other graphics providers are in business for profit.
The Fonts and Outlines section is predictably excellent, with details of styling, paths and similar hands-on stuff. There’s a Bottom-line Rule: If it works on your desktop printer and it Makes You Happy, then Do It; but if you send your material to an outside printer you must abide by their rules or you won’t get the results you expect.
There’s a plug here for two other Williams books: “How to Boss your Fonts Around, 2d Ed.” (Mac) and “The Non-Designer’s Type Book” (Mac or Windows).
The last major heading is “Getting Your Work Printed;” there are five chapters, the last being a pre-flight checklist. I won’t comment on them specifically; they’re all good nuts-and-bolts material, perhaps best summed up by “Know your printer.” In that connection, there’s even an interesting bit on the development of the Service Bureau.
Our Authors finish up with a genuinely helpful quiz, an appendix on resources, another with the quiz answers (and reasons when necessary) and a good Index.
I intend to look up the Williams font book. Cohen, Sandee and Williams, Robin, Peachpit Press Berkeley CA (1999) ISBN 0-201-35394-6 $C 37.50
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