Rant: Our old print shop in Austin used to do everything with film and a light table

Last week I was cleaning out the back room and found a box of old film positives from a job we did three years ago. We had to cut rubylith by hand for spot colors, and registration was a nightmare if the film shifted even a little. Now I just send a PDF straight to the platesetter and it's done in minutes. Anyone else miss the hands-on feel of that old process, even though it was slower?

3 comments

3 Comments

jesse_harris1mo ago

Yeah, my buddy who ran a shop in the 90s told me about a job where the film got a tiny crease in it... they didn't catch it until after the plates were made, and the whole blue channel was off. Wasted a full day's run and a ton of material. He says he loves how reliable the new stuff is, but sometimes he misses the quiet focus of stripping in a darkroom, even with all the stress.

lucas1591mo agoProlific Poster

A whole DAY wasted? That's brutal.

josephs261mo agoMost Upvoted

The real waste was the mental energy spent trying to fix it. You can't bill for that.