How do they match: Prepress Technicians and Workers

  • Form Setter
  • Form Worker
  • Job Forwarder
  • Layout Former

  • Format and proof text and images submitted by designers and clients into finished pages that can be printed. Includes digital and photo typesetting. May produce printing plates.

  • Scale copy for reductions and enlargements, using proportion wheels.
  • Activate scanners to produce positive or negative films for the black-and-white, cyan, yellow, and magenta separations from each original copy.
  • Enter, position, and alter text size, using computers, to make up and arrange pages so that printed materials can be produced.
  • Examine unexposed photographic plates to detect flaws or foreign particles prior to printing.
  • Generate prepress proofs in digital or other format to approximate the appearance of the final printed piece.
  • Inspect developed film for specified results and quality, using magnifying glasses and scopes, forwarding acceptable negatives or positives to other workers or to customers.
  • Operate and maintain a variety of cameras and equipment, such as process, line, halftone, and color separation cameras, enlargers, electronic scanners, and contact equipment.
  • Perform tests to determine lengths of exposures, by exposing plates, scanning line copy, and comparing exposures to tone range scales.
  • Punch holes in light-sensitive plates and insert pins in holes to prepare plates for contact with positive or negative film.