John Calvano

We asked publishers: "What is your take on the future of e-books? What impact do you think they'll have on book publishing within a couple of years and on the way your company produces books?" John Calvano, editorial operations manager, Time Inc. Home Entertainment, New York City: "Of course, issues such as e-books and our company's impending merger with AOL create an 'open book' with regards to the digital asset of our content. Barring technological hurdles at present, our largely pictorial products are not as well suited for an e-book format as they are for a larger color screen. "They feasibly could be

Contemplating a move to CTP? Here's a quick list of key issues to consider, prepared with the input of managers like you Just how do you begin to hammer out your own plan for computer-to-plate (CTP) printing? One first step is asking your suppliers about their capabilities, so you can see how they might mesh with your own organization's capabilities and goals. To provide our readers with some practical, hands-on advice, we checked with three managers experienced in overseeing CTP work, and compiled their advice into this list of key questions. Special thanks to our field advisors John Calvano, editorial operations director, Time Inc.

CTP Opinions In four-color CTP, digital file preparation is more complicated and time-consuming; scanning, image editing, trapping and other prepress functions require more capable (and expensive) systems as well as highly-skilled prepress operators.-- --Frank Ervin, vice president of training and technology at Phoenix Color The biggest ad-vantage of CTP--better print quality--is most dramatic with four-color. --Steve Franzino, who is vice president of technology, Courier Corp "A black-and-white book typically is about 100 MB. A four-color book of the same page size is typically about 4 GB." --Craig Bauer, facilitator of information technology and digital prepress, R.R. Donnelley Roanoke A switch to a CTP

When it comes to computer-to-plate printing, more printers and publishers join the ranks of the believers every day, either experimenting with CTP with their four-color jobs, or switching to it by Tatyana Sinioukov Despite some limitations, as discussed by industry professionals below, CTP for four-color book production saves time and money and offers faster turnaround and higher quality than a conventional, film-based workflow. That's why more and more printers and publishers join the ranks of the believers every day, either experimenting with CTP with their four-color jobs, or switching to it completely. According to Frank Ervin, vice president of training and technology at

Browsing in bookstores while holiday shopping last month, perhaps you glimpsed Entertainment Weekly The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, People's Unforgettable Women of the Century, The Life Millennium, or Time Almanac. If so, you know that a hallmark of these publications is meticulous treatment of photos and color. John Calvano, editorial operations manager at Time Inc. Home Entertainment, is one of the behind-the-scenes individuals responsible for overseeing quality of those publications--and more. When all is said and done, at the end of 1998 Calvano expected to have overseen editorial production for 8,000 pictures within 10,000 pages across 37 titles (or 52 if

The color image scans produced for Time Inc. Home Entertainment books must be top quality. To assure himself that proofs he's reviewing represent what will ultimately be printed, Editorial Operations Manager John Calvano asks prepress houses that work for Time to run out a test page every two weeks on the devices regularly used to print proofs. The page includes three images from some of his previous jobs--images for which he knows what to look for--as well as industry-standard color patch strips. Since a book's scans are often produced in batches over several weeks, the test pages help him check for color consistency over time.

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