Prepress involves any function performed before the printing plate is burned. Our prepress services span the gamut:

• Creating a project from scratch by our graphics department
• Scanning original materials to generate digital files
• Providing digital and online proofs
• Incorporating computer-to-plate technology and workflow

Scanning

In our full-service scanning operation, we take your originals, whether they are transparencies, prints, books, or negatives, and produce beautiful reproductions. We also offer copy-dot scanning of print-ready film that integrates into our digital workflow.

Digital Proofing

Gone are the days of the traditional, light-sensitive blue line. We produce your imposition proofs digitally on high-speed, wide-format plotters. The same digital front-end equipment that drive our CTP devices drives our three plotters. This ensures that the integrity of the files is maintained throughout the entire prepress production cycle.

We offer three levels of digital proofs that correspond to the level of color predictability that you require for your project. For a further explanation of our proofs and our proofing products, please either contact your Account Manager or send an email to info@hbp.com.

Online Proofing

With online proofing, you can view, comment, and approve your job proofs over the Internet using a standard Web browser. This also allows people working at different sites to access the same proofs.

Online proofing works like this:

• Log in to our site with your user name and password; this allows the secure tracking of comments and approvals and ensures that our databases only display your proofs.
• You are presented with a list of available proofs, organized by categories. You can open the PDF proof in a Web browser and enter comments in the accompanying information frame.
• Our database logs the comments and displays them in real time to other connected users, provided they all have access to the same files. An administrator at your company can add additional users, create new categories, and assign/revoke access levels.

Being able to access online proofs is useful at several stages of the print production cycle, and it's a great tool for making last-minute corrections to jobs that are ready to go to press. (Because of computer monitor limitations, which make it difficult to maintain any level of color fidelity, we do not recommend these online PDFs as final contract proofs.)

Computer to Plate (CTP) Technology and the ROOM Philosophy

The cornerstone of our technologically advanced prepress operations is our investment in CTP equipment and Kodak's PDF based Prinergy workflow. Our two CTP devices are linked to highly efficient workflows that help us reduce waste (both in labor and materials), minimize the risk for errors, and streamline the operations.

With our system, we process job files as individual pages; for example, a 16-page book will have 16 individual files. This ensures the integrity of the data throughout the production and correction cycles. If a customer makes a change on page 10, we only re-process page 10. The other 15 pages remain the same, minimizing the chance of an error.

HBP Inc. • 952 Frederick St., Hagerstown, MD 21740 • 800-638-3508 • 301-733-2000 • FAX 301-733-6586