Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!concertina!fiddler
From: fiddler@concertina.Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga mentality
Message-ID: <134255@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 10 Apr 90 20:58:44 GMT
References: <2129@crash.cts.com>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 58

In article <2129@crash.cts.com>, seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes:
>  
> Why don't you go back and check your issue numbers, and see when they started
> using their Amiga...within the first year!  This magazine has been out for
> about what, 3 years now?  There still isn't a Mac magazine produced ENTIRELY
> on the Mac, without having to do color-seps the traditional way. 

Not true.  The reason that separations are stripped in is because nobody
can match the quality of traditional separations for any sort of reasonable
price/time expenditure.  Has nothing to do with Macs, Amigas or ...

Just because it might be possible to do something (like abandoning
traditional color separations, for instance) doesn't mean that it would
be a good idea to do it.  Other than proving that it could be done, maybe.

A new tool may be a new tool, but it would be dumb to throw out the old
tool if the new tool doesn't do at least as good a job, or have some
powerful benefit, such as reduced cost or manpower requirements, with
equivalent quality of final product.

(As far as I'm concerned, traditional separations are just barely adequate
anyway...but then, I'm used to 4x5 or larger view camera quality.  Most
magazine illustrations start out as 35mm transparencies.  That's
starting out with two strikes on you.)

> Now that Adobe has their utility out, you'll see it start to happen.
> Regardless of quality, it was the first.

Adobe isn't the first, either.  Not to mention *not* being the only one
on the market.

> My point is, if Apple was touting it as the DTP computer to have, why
> has it taken sooo long to be able to do this kind of stuff?

Because a lot of the technology needed to do these things are unconnected with
Apple (or Amiga or...), except as being end users.  Laser printers, for example,
are just the first wave of *cheap*, fairly reliable printers with barely
adequate output quality.  Barely.  (Compare 300dpi with 1270 or 2540dpi output
for a serious effort.  The 300 dpi is probably OK for comps...it won't cut it
for high-quality publications or books.)

Patience, though, we'll probably be seeing affordable, high-quality output
devices within the decade.  (There are already 400-1000dpi printers coming
out at under $10,000.  It's coming.)

There's a lot more to publishing than DTP, by a long shot.  Things like
good design, proper font selection, and so on.  (Content?  What's that? :} )

There's also a lot of reinventing the wheel going on in DTP circles,
along with a *lot* of really ugly stuff being produced.

Things have come a long way since Herr Gutenberg, and DTP has a lot
of catching up to do.

------------
"Up the airey mountain, down the rushy glen,
   we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men..."
('cause Fish and Game has taken to hiring axe-carrying dwarves)