When I was an apprentice scanner operator/retoucher/planner (stripper) I used to get a great sense of achievement when finally producing a set of colour separations that were ready to go to plate making. In those days the job was highly skilled and you could earn good money, I remember scanner operators in the Eighties earning 70-90k a year in London.

It might take a whole day to make a double page spread of a magazine and a lot of expensive film intermediates such as masks.

Typically the process might consist of:

Scanning

  • Scale film transparencies to artwork from ad studio or publisher
  • Clean and mount transparencies onto scanner drum and load film into recording drum
  • Set up scanner by analysing pictures setting highlight and shadow detail
  • Scan and then unload film into chemical film processor

Planning

  • Photograph artwork on large format vertical camera and process film through processor
  • Create masks by cutting with a scalpel
  • Use brushes and opaque paint to mask areas such as hair on backgrounds
  • Combine typesetting with separations
  • After perhaps some 50 sheets of contact film merge with colour separations to create a four colour set of master films
Proofing
  • Cromalins or matchprints made
  • If colours were not right, separations had to be chemically retouched using harzardous acids to etch away the size of the halftone dot
  • Re-proof
I’d have to say what we do now is so much faster.
  1. Import pictures from digital camera
  2. Combine with page layout using software such as InDesign or Quark Xpress
  3. Output proofs straight to inkjet
  4. Retouch photographs in photoshop on a home computer
  5. Print separations from computer to metal printing plate ready for printing
All done in probably a 1/8 of the time, at a lot less cost (a scanner back in 1985 was well over £100,000 compared with one today at around £3,000 plus a huge drop in salaries as technology allowed unskilled labour into the industry) and with a huge reductions in the impact on the environment.
But the old way was a craft and a skill in an almost organic process, using a computer is a skill but you just can’t beat actually making something with your own hands, like carving a piece of wood and making a piece of furniture.