🚀 go-pugleaf

 > >camera-ready.  It's good enough for in-house repro 
 > junk, but a Printer 
 > >will not except anything less than 600x600 D.P.I. to 
 > produce decent 
 > >quality.  

 > I'll agree that 300 d.p.i. is not really publication 
 > quality.  

 > 300 (1270 or 2540 d.p.i. - who cares) just doesn't 
 > look like 
 > a plain ordinary printed BOOK. Somehow, however good 
 > they look, 
 > they just don't look "right", by which I mean look 
 > like any 
 > ordinary high quality (technical) book printed before, 
 > say, 1982.  

What we have here is an object lesson in the evolution of taste. At one time,
and not too long ago, phototypesetting was considered a cheap imitation - only
hot metal typesetting was "real". Now, we face a further change in public
taste. Not so much with the advent of the Linotronic, but with the desktop
laser. 

The simple fact is that many publications (small publications, to be sure) use
300 dpi imaging quite effectively. The secret is in not trying to make it
something that it's not. A skilled camera person will know that 300 dpi can be
improved in the process of making printing negatives. The front-end work
itself can aid in the process by using typefaces which are more forgiving in a
300 dpi environment. 

As for the look of books, that is as much what we have become used to as an
issue where right or wrong has any meaning. As with any technology, as the use
of 300 dpi imaging proliferates, it creates its own "right"ness. It becomes
what people are used to seeing, and they accept that it is how things are. 
Much the same process has happened with computer font generation on
television. In its earliest days, computer titling was ragged and crude. Few
media professionals would even consider it in the light of any alternative at
all.  Today, however, it is accepted and virtually universal. The skill and
artistic treatment of the operators notwithstanding, the characters are still
heavily on the jaggy side. But now, I would maintain that most people just
think that's the way it is, and don't even remember the days of smooth edged
film opticals. 

The main problem with DTP in general is that it falls into the hand of people
who expect a computer to design for them, and silently accept what it puts
out. While that product may be mathematically sound, it's lousy design. The
designer who treats the machine as just another tool, albeit a powerful one,
will probably find a way to get the type looking the way you would like to see
it in that book, though realistically new rarely duplicates old. 

--  

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