Digital Is Faster, But Not Always Better

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept, 2000 by Howard Fenton

Remember, as you move to the all-digital workflow, that you're gaining speed but generally ceding quality. Here's the lay of the land for digital proofers, presses and cameras.

Digital technologies are hot. You can't watch the evening news or read a newspaper or magazine without finding a story describing how digital technologies improve lives. But not everyone understands the main advantage of digital technologies--speed. Some believe it is improved quality--and while this is occasionally true, generally it is not. Digital cameras, digital proofers and digital presses illustrate this.

Digital cameras

Digital cameras are popular with newspapers and catalogs, but less so with magazines. For publications that require shorter turnaround time, digital cameras get the job done efficiently. They capture images faster than a film-based camera, and do not require overnight processing, oil mounting on a drum scanner, or the time to set your highlight and shadow dots in your scanning software.

Inexpensive digital cameras can cost $300, while expensive ones can cost as much as $35,000. A cheaper camera, however, is not adequate for most magazine work because of resolution, dynamic range, CCD (charged couple device) chip and a host of other reasons. Cheaper cameras do work for images posted on Web pages because Web pages require the least resolution, while magazines and high-quality catalogs require the most. Because higher-priced cameras produce exceptional quality, some magazines have decided to adopt high-end cameras such as the Leaf and Dicomed.

Digital proofers

If you are printing to a digital proofer, the proof will be created faster than if you created a film-based proof after outputting film. Proofers range from $300 HP or Epson ink-jets to $150,000 state-of-the-art equipment made by Kodak, Polaroid, Imation and Creo.

The expensive, state-of-the-art devices are called DDCPs (direct digital color proofers) and achieve higher quality than the film-based proofs such as Matchprints and Cromalins. Like digital cameras, digital devices are faster, but only the highest-priced devices provide comparable or better quality.

Digital presses

I define a digital press as anything that can print from a computer file. In this context, the term "digital press" includes everything from inexpensive six-page-per-minute copiers, to high-end copier-type devices (Docutechs, Xeikons, Indigos), to offset presses that use direct imaging on the press (the Heidelberg or the Karat). What differentiates printing technologies from one another is not only quality, but also speed and cost effectiveness.

The turnaround time for presses depends on the job. If you want to walk into a print shop at 9 a.m. and walkout by noon with 35 copies of your magazine, you could use a copier-type digital press. If you want to walk out with 3,000 magazines you would use a digital press with direct imaging technology. If you want to ship 35,000 magazines in two days, you would use a traditional press. Use of the digital press makes the most sense in instances when speed is more important than quality.

The future

What is the impact of these technologies on magazine production today? Digital proofers have the highest adoption rate. Many publishers own inexpensive devices and accept DDCPs as contract proofs. Digital cameras remain the second most popular technology, and digital presses are the least. In terms of quality, digital cameras work best for still photos, although they are expensive to adopt. Copier-based digital presses achieve low quality for faster jobs; the run length for magazines is cost effective only with traditional presses.

What about tomorrow? Adoption rates for digital technologies will continue to rise. With digital proofers increasing in quality and decreasing in price, digital proofing will move from a popular to a "must have" technology in future years.

As military technology becomes declassified and wavelet compression technology becomes mainstream, expect digital cameras to become commonplace. Yet only the pioneers continue testing the viability of new printing technologies for publishing applications. Although these presses work well for direct marketing campaigns, books and short print-runs, most publishers do not want to be the digital leaders who get electronic arrows in their virtual backs.

Howard Fenton is senior technical consultant for digital technologies for the newly consolidated Graphic Arts Technical Foundation and Printing Industry of America.