The next trick is to find a friendly printer who will run samples in the off-cut areas of jobs on various stocks.

John,
I’ll have to try that :-)

ChrisL

Yo, Chris! What is “Linotronic”?

You, Kris!

Linotronic is the brand name for a high-res (generally 2400-3600dpi)
imagesetter, which outputs to paper or film. They are slowly disappearing and being replaced by CTP (computer-to-plate) technology, which skips the intermediate step of output to film, which involves strippers in the process. And, no, they are not THAT kind of stripper...

Yo Nick!

Bummer about the strippers…I did have my suspicions about the back rooms of the Printers.

How much do one of these Linotronic outputs cost?

Kris,
When Linotronic was commonly used and was easy to find, output was about $25 per letter-sized page. Today, the trick is just to find someone who will do it! It cost me about $300 to have four 11” x 17” films made and 3 contact prints of each made.

Wishing you well down under dude!

ChrisL

Kris,
The well-weathered looking guy who output my files was not stripper materiial :-)

ChrisL

Yeah, multi-1000 dpi is certainly an eye-opener.
The thing is, it can actually be TOO high-fidelity! :-/

> about $300

That’s too much.

hhp

“That’s too much.”

Yup.

ChrisL

You have to be kidding, a letter sheet of film outputted in a linotype imagesetter costs about 7 dollars here and 4 in México city.

Héctor

Do they do work from the U.S. ? What is shipping charge?

ChrisL

Chris, unless you’re doing massive amounts of this stuff,
it won’t make sense to go outside the US; lino output isn’t
THAT rare... Like the bureau I use in Glendale would’ve
charged maybe around half what you paid.

hhp

Is this it?

http://cgi.ebay.com/PS-QUASAR-Linotype-Hell-AG-plate-imagesetter-TYPE-45...

This item has the craziest amount for shipping that I have ever seen on the bay.

“craziest amount for shipping”

That is because it is huge, heavy, and breakable.

ChrisL

Hrant,
Four 11” x 17” films plus 3 contact prints of each (12 prints) would be $150 at your place?

ChrisL

I’ll get you a firm price tomorrow. I do remember that veloxes (prints)
are $7 there. If you hear nothing back by Tuesday please remind me.

hhp

Thanks Hrant!

Velox is a term I am quite familiar with but have not heard in many years (since digital tookover). It went by way of VanDyck prints, Bendays, etc. It was actually a brand name originally that generalised, sort of like a xerox copy meaning a photo copy. All of this explanation is for the younger readers who never knew the smell of fix, Bestine, or amonia :-)

ChrisL

So much for Supply & Demand theory...

Apparently demand for velox has gone down dramatically since
the last time I made some (about a year ago) so now it’s $15 for
tabloid size ($10 for letter size) prints. Tabloid film output at
this place is $20 per, so the total is... $260. :-/ So you did OK
after all. The good news I guess is that an occasional drive to
Tijuana is looking [even] better now.

But if you’re still interested:
EDI Works: 818 543 4220
Ask for Alicia, and tell her I sent you.

Now to check for velox machines on eBay... :-/

hhp

Thanks Hrant! If I were to factor in shipping, it would be the same price as here. Also, I can get it done overnight here.

ChrisL

Chris, this just hit me (since I haven’t actually done it since
the early 90s): lino machines can actually output directly to
“paper” instead of film (it feels a lot like velox, just thinner IIRC).
The drawback is that they have to have the supplies available and
be willing to swap them in for film, but I’m thinking that would
raise the price (compared to film) only modestly. Oh, another draw-
back is that you only get one thing out of it, not a thing (film) that
you can use to make multiple prints from. But of course you can
have a bunch of outputs of the same thing made.

hhp

If you fellows can sort out a hi-res output that doesn’t cost an obscene amount, I would be interested in getting some “prints” made.

I wish I could Kris. It would even be worse to have to ship it to you way down there. Here is hoping you have a better source than I do near home.

Nice new “k” by the way!

ChrisL

Cheers mate! Glad you like the “k”. It is a part of Zinc, which I should probably put up for crit sooner or later…

The ital “g” is sweet too Kris!

ChrisL

As a continuation, I am going into a pre-press bureau on Tuesday to talk about these things, and “bromides” in particular. I think this is where they output to film, then make a contact print from that. Is this a good way to proof type designs?

—K

That is exactly what I had done Kris. The names for processes may be different here than there. I believe photographic chemicals used to precess films are “Bromides” and that may be where that name comes from. Let me know how it turns out.

I got your PDF by the way, looking good!

ChrisL

Glad you like the pdf!

BTW, my output dudes reckon that they charge only NZ $20-30 per A3 Bromide. Which is really quite cheap, I think. Although I’ll have to confirm this on Tuesday. So it might be worthwhile, money-wise, for some of you guys to get it done over here. It wouldn’t be much for me to mail them to the States etc.

—K