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There are several things that one could do in order to find the best printing service provider in the city. There's more to printing these days than just putting ink on paper. So the term "printer" has been replaced by the broader term print service provider. A print service provider (PSP) provides a plethora of services including scanning, image retouching, and color proofs, as well as traditional and digital printing. One of the more traditional ways a print service provider reproduces the file starts with something called an imagesetter. An imagesetter is an extremely sophisticated (and expensive) printer similar, in some ways, to the desktop laser printer. The operator sits at a computer; opens the document; looks through the file to make sure it's okay; chooses "Print" from the File menu; and off goes the document to the image setter. The big difference between customer ( company or business) and the Printing Services provider is that their imagesetter does not print with toner or color ink cartridges —it outputs separations onto slick photographic paper or negative film (depending on which one the printing press needs), at extremely high resolutions like 2540 dots per inch. It's really beautiful. Then customers have to look over that output very carefully and hope there are no problems, typos, surprises, etc. the customer pay anywhere from 4 to 12 dollars a page for paper output (depending on how many pages their need) and even more for film. The print service provider uses your slick photographic paper out-put to make negative film (similar to the negatives customers get from the camera), and they use that film to make the plates that go on the printing press. However, instead of an image setter, the more modern print service providers will take the computer file and use it to create a plate directly from the software without any paper or film. This is called Computer to Plate or CTP. When customer turns in the files for output, customer will need to fill out a form that lists all the details of the job. This is usually called the output specifications, or job sheet. This is so important that I've written a whole chapter on the process How to find a print service provider A web search for "printers" will send customer to a slew of listings for the desktop printing machines. Instead, look for “Printing Services provider." Also ask the favorite local print shop and any designer friends for recommendations of their favorites. Just make sure one understand the difference between places that reproduces using copy machines versus one that uses real printing presses. Author Resource The Author is a professional writer, presently writing for Poster Printing, Printing Services for other information click here.
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