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Don Pickett · Jun 10, 2005, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Zimphire

No we are not. The only reason PSD files weren't "final art" is because no application other than Photoshop and Illustrator supported them.

Now there is.

you can even move the layers about.

There are a lot of reasons not to have PSDs as final art. The first one which comes to my mind is that you can move the layers around, which means that someone, somewhere, will do this when you don't want them to. I like to keep the type/design end of things and the image end of thing separated for precisely this reason, which is why I don't let designers touch final art. They can mark up all the matchprints they like, but they're not allowed to open and edit the final art themselves. Too much temptation to do a "last minute fix" which ends up causing a huge headache. I don't even like letting the designers touch the files once they've crossed over onto the production server.

Zimphire · Jun 10, 2005, 09:56 PM

What a lame excuse.

You could say that about ANYTHING on the document. Artwork or not.

Where I work, I am the only one that touches the files anyhow.

Tyre MacAdmin · Jun 10, 2005, 10:27 PM

Maybe just enough money to keep Quark alive... Best idea I've heard yet to keep a company live. Hmm let's do the math... CEO make how much a day for doing... what? Wow! What a profit!

MaxPower · Jun 10, 2005, 11:16 PM

I started my career on Quark. Watched as they passed up numerous chances to become a truly excellent software company again. Who was there to provide an alternative? I hoped InDesign would come out of the gate ready to go toe to toe with Xpress but it was not in the cards. It's taken them to CS before its nearing parity. I have to work in both apps, but when I have a choice I choose InDesign. To paraphrase Chizen, "Adobe, what took you so long?"

Quark should have died right about the time they released this:

Zimphire · Jun 10, 2005, 11:19 PM

Oh man, I forgot about emedia,

You know I have been accused of being an Adobe fanboy.

But I HATED Pagemaker. With a passion.

I dislike Golive too.

Poor Dreamweaver.

I was a Freehand person before Illustrator 8.

And Photoshop, well there is no alternative.

MaxPower · Jun 10, 2005, 11:39 PM

Zimphire, I was exactly the same way on the software you mentioned. Don't even get me started on SyQuest drives.

Don Pickett · Jun 11, 2005, 01:06 AM

Originally Posted by Zimphire

What a lame excuse.

You could say that about ANYTHING on the document. Artwork or not.

Where I work, I am the only one that touches the files anyhow.

Not a lame excuse. I would imagine you work in a small shop, as you're the only one who touched the files. I work in some big places – multinational, multibillion dollar companies – and we keep art and type separate for many reasons: quality control, version control, etc. Once the client has signed off on the look of the piece, the designers hand it off to the production people and never touch it again. Same with the art: once the client signs off on it, the retouching department gets it and processes it through final matchprint approval and prepares final files for the production people to drop into the pieces. Keeping things separate allows for better quality and version control, and allows the art and the type to be done at the same time. Helps when you're doing 40 annual reports in 16 weeks.

Having worked and managed in small shops and big, I will take big shops any day.

Randman · Jun 11, 2005, 03:36 AM

I wish Quark was run better and designed better. But it's not Pagemaker. God, what an awful creation that was. I still detest it.

chris v · Jun 11, 2005, 08:01 AM

As a press person, let me say I can't think of any reason whatsoever to send a PSD job to production with layers.

Sorry to go horribly off the rails here, but has there been any more news about why this guy so suddenly quit?

Zimphire · Jun 11, 2005, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

Not a lame excuse. I would imagine you work in a small shop, as you're the only one who touched the files. I work in some big places – multinational, multibillion dollar companies – and we keep art and type separate for many reasons: quality control, version control, etc. Once the client has signed off on the look of the piece, the designers hand it off to the production people and never touch it again. Same with the art: once the client signs off on it, the retouching department gets it and processes it through final matchprint approval and prepares final files for the production people to drop into the pieces. Keeping things separate allows for better quality and version control, and allows the art and the type to be done at the same time. Helps when you're doing 40 annual reports in 16 weeks.

Having worked and managed in small shops and big, I will take big shops any day.

Hey, just tell your designers not to mess with it or they will get fired.

That is what the BIG PLACES I worked at did.

It's an lame duck excuse, and you know it.

Don't like that feature? Simply don't use it. You don't have to.

Now that I have used it, I wouldn't want to live without it.

It makes my life EASIER. And that is what good software is supposed to do .

End of story.

Zimphire · Jun 11, 2005, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by chris v

As a press person, let me say I can't think of any reason whatsoever to send a PSD job to production with layers.

Never said anything about sending a job with it that way.

It lets you import them that way, so you can mess around, and move stuff around.

Later after everything is finalized, it's usually flattened.

Something I can't do in Quark.

Quark's Photoshop layer support (And they do try) is horrible.

Zimphire · Jun 11, 2005, 09:29 AM

Macworld is in on the act, too, calling InDesign “clearly the leader:”

Press’s unique strengths have dwindled to a few little-used functions, and InDesign CS is the program that will relegate QuarkXPress to PageMaker’s status of a decade ago. PageMaker users gave up that program’s few advantages to move to QuarkXPress, and now QuarkXPress users are likely to switch to InDesign, which, by all accounts, Adobe will continue to improve.

But I am SURE Macworld doesn't have the experience to know what they are talking about.

They are saying the VERY SAME THING we have been saying.

Quark is about to become the Pagemaker of layout apps.

budster101 · Jun 11, 2005, 10:06 AM

Uhm. YOU CAN LOCK THE LAYERS IN PHOTOSHOP. What if there is a mistake? You can tell the guy to go ahead and make the LAYER change... duh.

Giving people the power to change something, doesn't mean they will by mistake, or on purpose.

Lock them layers. Or you can give them the flattened version...
I prefer TIFFS myself, but just did a job where the idiot printing the job said:

Give me a smaller file, so I gave him a TIFF.. then the client (next store) said, remove this layer...
I had given him the PSD which he (Oh so professionally DELETED), so I had to give it to him again...

PSD IS OK.

docbud · Jun 11, 2005, 12:56 PM

The company I work for is mainly Quark, though we are also learning InDesign. We are still using Quark because that's what the clients are using. I don't know what the newspapers or magazines are using. All I know is that the major book publishers are still using Quark, and book publishing is the field I am in.

One of the publishers is staying with Quark, and the other is moving to InDesign. So our shop will be using both applications.

Like Don said--there are good things and bad things about both programs. I use xTags extensively and it works great with Quark. I'm not too crazy about the xTags version that came out for ID. I do love the nested character style sheets that ID offers, and I wish Quark had that built in. I love the kerning tables in Quark.

I do worry about the markup of the manuscript when we have ID jobs keyboarded. Right now it's pretty easy with Quark and xTags. From the few jobs I've marked up for ID--it did seem to take longer. To get around the need to use different coding, I created several word macros that will allow me to use Quark coding and the macro will change to the ID coding for me. And I had to write macros so the ID codes for em dashes, en dashes, etc. will come through).

I will be working on a 600-page book with a lot of elements (multiple heads, extracts, tables, charts, sidebars, etc.) and will see how ID handles large complicated books.

We will be using what the clients want us to use. If they want us to use Quark, we will use Quark. If they want us to use InDesign, we will use InDesign.

doc

budster101 · Jun 11, 2005, 01:06 PM

Well said.

I used InDesign to convert Financial Advertisements from Quark to InDesign. Mainly for Credit Card Mailing Offers... It was not like a 600 page book. I can appreciate even PageMaker for what it did for large catalogue work as I did a 20,000 product Catalogue with photography a while ago, and PageMaker was just fine, albeit quirky... I'd love to try to convert it to InDesign though.

I'm all for Adobe buying out Quark and making one killer product... they already bought out Macromdia which I think took Flash and the rest of the Suite as far as they could... now on to bigger and better things.

docbud · Jun 11, 2005, 01:16 PM

hey budster101

You never know about Adobe buying Quark. I think it would be great if there was a killer paging program that combined the good things of ID and Quark. And doesn't InDesignCS have a Pagemaker plug-in? I'm pretty sure there was a CD in the box that had it.

General question to the folks posting in this thread: Have any of you done large books with InDesign? I'd like to hear of your experiences and opinions.

doc

budster101 · Jun 11, 2005, 01:17 PM

There is a version of InDesign that had Pagemaker features... I avoided it as Pagemaker made me nauseous...

No large books here. I'd love to do some textbooks, anyone got any?

Don Pickett · Jun 12, 2005, 01:45 AM

Originally Posted by budster101

No large books here. I'd love to do some textbooks, anyone got any?

There's a lot of textbook production in NYC. Once your prove you can do the work, you get used over and over.

Mastrap · Jun 12, 2005, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by docbud

hey budster101

You never know about Adobe buying Quark. I think it would be great if there was a killer paging program that combined the good things of ID and Quark. And doesn't InDesignCS have a Pagemaker plug-in? I'm pretty sure there was a CD in the box that had it.

General question to the folks posting in this thread: Have any of you done large books with InDesign? I'd like to hear of your experiences and opinions.

doc

We do all of our books in ID. Once the initial template is set up this is as easy as 'command D'

docbud · Jun 12, 2005, 06:32 PM

Mastrap--I work for companies like Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins. There is no one template to be used. Each and every book is different. Trim size, different fonts and sizes/leading, etc. And each has it's own unique elements. Unfortunately, 'command D' is not an option.

I don't do the self-publishing thing.

But hey--nice site.

I know a few people who are trying to find a self-publishing place and I will send them your way.

doc