Scanning, networking and training

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April, 1989 by Jack Powers

Scanning, networking and training

Most of the people who sell desktop publishing systems know very little about publishing and even less about systems. Although they may know how to make a particular product work, they don't know how to fit that product into the real publishing world, and they're easily excited by hype about magical new products that promise to change the world.

This month we answer some questions about training for desktop publishing, discuss the many options for networking desktop computers into productive systems, and look at the real story behind picture scanners and desktop color separation.

Learn the job, not the program Q. We're installing a full desktop publishing operation in our art department. Where should we get training? A. Most vendors of desktop publishing equipment provide training on the applications software they sell. They'll show you how to turn the machines on, call up the programs, and make pages. Third-party training centers now springing up around the country similarly focus on teaching software and hardware basics.

But beyond using the programs, most first-time desktop publishers need training in electronic publishing production--not just how the software works, but how to use it to paginate a real magazine: how to manage files, track jobs, organize style tables, prepare repros and work to deadline.

Many colleges and universities--especially the big city schools of design--offer some excellent classes in publications production and in putting desktop publishing to work in a real pre-press department.

Scanning pictures Q. My boss came back from a trade show last month and asked me why we're still shooting halftones on a camera instead of scanning them into our desktop publishing package. I've told him that scanning doesn't make sense for us, but he wants to hear it from an expert. A. The idea of scanning images into a desktop personal computer is generally promoted by people who don't do much publishing. Although some of the better scanners can be used for line art, photographic scanning is still some years away--for three important reasons: scan quality, system overhead and competition.

Desktop publishing scanners are $1,500 to $8,000 devices that plug into Macintoshes and PCs. The less expensive they are, the coarser they scan. Most scan at 300 dots per inch and give fewer than 16 levels of gray per dot. In contrast, graphic arts-quality scanners reach 400 dots per inch and deliver 256 levels of gray per dot.

Resolution is important: You generally want to input twice as many dots per inch as the line screen you're using: a 133-line screen should start with 266 dots per inch. But gray scale is key: Without enough levels of gradation, a scanned picture develops a posterized effect as the software has to pick the nearest gray level for every dot in the image.

In computers, if something is too slow, too expensive and not good enough today, you can bet it will be faster, cheaper and better by the next trade show. There are now 300- and 400-dpi scanners delivering 256 levels of gray per dot coming to the desktop publishing market at $8,000 to $10,000. Solving the problem of scan quality, however, just exacerbates the problem of system overhead.

A scanned picture at graphic arts resolution takes up a tremendous amount of space. The black-and-white 3" X 4.25", 300-dpi, 16 gray level photo we scanned for this column takes up 547K of disk storage.

At half-a-megabyte per, you need a computer with lots of speed, lots of memory and lots of disk space. You also need a fast network if you're going to transmit photos around the office. It took over a minute and a half to transmit our test picture from a Mac II to a Mac Plus over a TOPS network with no other activity going on at the time. (Transmitting the picture over the phone to a typesetting service bureau is even more impractical, since the fastest modems at 9600 baud are 23 times slower than the AppleTalk network. And at 547K per picture, you can fit only one full resolution image per 800K floppy disk.)

The last consideration in discussing picture scanning is the competition. After spending $2,500 on a black-and-white desktop scanner, plus $1,000 or so for a large capacity disk drive, plus $1,200 for a gray scale monitor, plus a few bucks more for training, installation and a truckload of floppy disks, what you're left with is a slow system that produces gigantic photo files that don't look very good on output. The alternative is to paste in a stat or strip in a halftone negative. For all the scanner hype, it takes a heap of high tech to beat a $7 velox.

Setting up a training center Q. We're a medium-size magazine group with 40 editors on-line and three different art departments. We're thinking of starting an in-house training and support department, but we need help getting started. A. The way technology changes these days, it makes good sense to consider an in-house publishing technology center once you get beyond 20 or 30 people at production computers.