Candidate of the Week - Prepress Manager, Sydney

10 February 2009

Career Overview
Having started in the trade in the Hot-metal days I have had the privilege of operating many of the old forms of typesetting systems; including Ludlows, Monarchs & Linotypes and have seen the development of Cold-type with Varitype and Compugraphic systems, and the evolution of the Desktop system on Apple Macs and PC environments.

During my career I have worked in various stages of the Pre-press Industry, spanning the process from design and layout to sending jobs to film and CTP, using Trueflow, creating a vision and seeing it completed and running on a press can be a very rewarding feeling.

Having setup jobs for various sized presses, the 1 colour GTO, the workhorse of the industry, 2 colour ITEK’s that I have seen used to create four colour jobs, up to and including the bigger Ryobi, Komori and 6 and 8 colour A1/A2 Heidelberg SM/CD’s.  Web fed presses for Newspaper and forms presses like the Ukita and Miyakoshi & Xerox.

Key Strengths

  • As the Prepress Manager, I needed to coordinate with both the sales team and the production team to guarantee that the client expectations and the company objectives are met. I also needed to provide the clients with advice regarding the preparation of digital files.

  • I am proficient in all Computer skills.  I know the PC to Mac and Mac to PCconversion processes as well as file compression, print spoolers, and disk repair.  Thorough knowledge in software such as Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, Corel WordPerfect, Quark Xpress and Microsoft Word. I have also done Imposition in Quark and also used Trueflow CTP.

  • I am familiar with the different practice and processes in the world of printing, Iemigrated from South Africa 20 years ago, where I have also been a Supervisor in the printing Industry, I have Visited Japan and Germany and attended Graphic Arts Exhibitions. I have the ability to send files to colour copiers, docutechs, highspeeddigital copiers, Trueflow CTP and image setters. I have been staying updated with the latest technologies and software tools which can be used in the various prepress processes. I also have experience in paste-up and book imposition.

  • Proficient user of Adobe Photoshop up to CS3 on both windows and mac platform, conversion of graphics to useable formats, scanning of documents, photos and line artwork, basic vector creation from bitmap source, colouring of greyscale and bitmap documents, clipping paths and extraction of image for use elsewhere, ability to work in layers and adjustment layers, photorestoration and image composition.

  • Proficient user of Adobe Illustrator up to CS3 on both windows and macplatform, logo creation, map work, creation of vector graphics from bitmaps,conversion from other vector packages, basic editing of pdf documents and trapping.

  • Proficient user of Adobe Acrobat/Distiller up to CS3 (v8) on both windowsand mac platform, basic editing of pdf’s, pre-flight, text correction, commentand markup, creation of electronic forms, all Prepress Solutions, making sure all forms of output to CTP is correct. To strive towards a continued learning of ways of expression thru the graphic arts and to learn new ways to achieve tasks and to simplify and expand my learned experience .

 


Career History
March 1996 – September 2008 JA Wales Printers (Artroom & Pre-press),
Manager:- 13 years

1989 – 1994 Planet Press, Australia (Mac operator & prepress):- 5 years

1978 – 1988 Kwik Kolor printing, South Africa, (Pre-press):- 10 years

1974 – 1978 Omega Repro South Africa (Commercial Artist): - 4 Years


Key responsibility

  • my job involved the management of the processes between staff, delegatingof artwork and daily production of jobs in the artroom and I was alsohands-on at all times, trouble shooting and training. My job required a lot ofsocial interaction, with excellent language and communication skills.

  • I install Hardware and Software on PC and MAC.

  • I demanded a high standard or work from my staff to ensure our skills and capabilities meet customer needs. From first receiving client information via disk, email, FTP or scan, we ensure that all data is accurately translated through our electronic systems to the press. Once a design is approved, we can digitally output files on plates, film, paper (colour or black and white) and disk (CD, DVD, ZIP or Floppy).

  • As the Prepress Manager, I needed to coordinate with both the sales teamand the production team to guarantee that the client expectations and thecompany objectives are met. I also needed to provide the clients with adviceregarding the preparation of digital files.

 

relevant education
1974: Trade Certificate, Hand Composing, Johannesburg Technical College
1978: Commercial Art, Omega Repro
1986: Computer Graphics

 

email:  mcamay@optusnet.com.au