How the Bigger Get Better II

No single group of printing service providers understands this uncomfortable reality more than prepress trade shops and separators. Since the late 1970s, these companies have been learning and relearning a new maze every few years in their attempt to find the elusive cheese. Whereas the fundamental product of printers—ink on substrate—has remained relatively unchanged, trade shops have gone from selling type galleys, drum scans, and film to a wholly different marketplace of PDF files, laser imaged plates, and digital asset management systems. Those trade shops that have survived, that is.