In 1985, the first desktop publishing system appeared and with it the term “prepress”.
Pre-press preparation of the publication includes:
Printing house:
Insert (if multi-page publication).
Main development trends:
New technologies have opened up opportunities for decentralizing the production of large-circulation printed periodicals. The distribution of such newspapers as “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Trud”, “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, “Izvestia”, or the weekly “Arguments and Facts”, the circulation of which amounts to hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies, can only be ensured by dispersing the printing of issues across regions according to the number of potential readers in each of them. Over the Internet, strips of the next issue are transmitted to a printing company located in a regional center, the circulation of which goes to subscribers and newsstands. For example, almost three million copies of the weekly “Arguments and Facts” are printed together with regional supplements in 64 cities of various republics, territories and regions of Russia and other CIS countries - from Almaty to Yaroslavl. The editors of the Izvestia newspaper, whose circulation is printed in 26 cities - capitals and regional centers of Russia and other countries, also resort to the same method of decentralizing the publication and distribution of newspaper issues.
On the other hand, the editorial offices of small local publications - city and regional newspapers, which do not have the technical base that allows them to ensure the production and distribution of their publications at a sufficiently high design and printing level, can find a way out by using the centralization of newspaper publication. Having prepared the next issue, such an editorial office can transmit its texts, illustrations and layout via the Internet to a printing enterprise located in the regional center or in another large nearby city.
Progress is taking place in the printing industry: many regional printing houses are being privatized, purchasing modern equipment abroad, prospering and have free money. And where there is a good printing base and funds, it is possible to create new promising newspaper and publishing concerns. In a number of regions, printing houses themselves have launched the production of newspapers aimed at urban and regional audiences. For example, five such publications are published in the Tver region. Their founder is a printing house. Such publications compare favorably with their predecessors.
The process of publishing an online newspaper required a restructuring of the editorial office and the organization of its work. For the editorial office of an online newspaper, it is not necessary for all or most of its employees to be present in the office. Only electronics specialists should be present here to control the electronic software release. The rest of the editorial staff - journalists, managers, etc. - can perform their duties in accordance with the plan of the issue and the process of its publication, being in any other place where they can work on a computer connected to the newspaper’s electronic system. Its editor-in-chief can direct the release of the issue while at home. The correspondent gets the opportunity to send his text or illustration from home or from the scene using his computer. The web editor also works on this text, editing it and publishing it in the issue. The webmaster/layout designer maintains the newspaper on the Internet.
The term "printing" ( Greekpolis– a lot andgrapho– I’m writing) literally means a lot of writing, i.e. reproduction of a large number of copies of the same text or picture. Printing is a branch of technology, which is a set of technical tools for the production of printed products. Basic production processes in printing: production of printing plates, actual printing and finishing of printed products.
The printing process begins with the production of a printing plate. In a simplified form, it is a plate, the surface of which is divided into printing (giving impressions on paper) and blank (non-printing) elements. Nowadays, there are several types of printing forms, the design of which is determined by printing technology. Letterpress printing uses typography, cliches, and stereotypes. When flat - a form on a monometal (aluminum, zinc), bimetal and trimetal (steel, copper, chrome), on glass; for intaglio printing - copper or chrome-plated cylinders.
For more than one millennium, people have been making signets - stamps (printing forms) that allow them to make impressions of relief designs on a soft material (moistened clay, molten wax, etc.). For example, the seals of the ancient Indian civilization of Mohenjo-Daro have reached us. In ancient Babylon and Assyria at about the same time, signets were widely known - cylinders that were rolled over the surface of a printing form. It is interesting that in ancient times people also used the stamping principle to mint coins.
Initially, each stamp was intended to extrude an entire picture along with inscriptions. Then the idea came up to make separate stamps for each letter. The first inscription known to science, extruded in a discrete manner, was found on the Greek island of Crete at the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC The same method was used in ancient Rome to emboss mottos on rings, and later in the Middle Ages in Europe to emboss inscriptions on the leather bindings of handwritten books.
Another component of printing technology – ink transfer – was also invented by man a long time ago. First, the technology of applying a pattern to fabric appeared: a pattern cut out on a smoothly planed wooden plate was covered with paint, then pressed onto a tightly stretched piece of fabric. The oldest example of printed fabric, made in the 4th century, was found in Egypt.
Texts were first printed in Korea (the oldest example was found in 751), then in China (757) and, finally, in Japan (764–770). For this we used technology woodcuts (from Greekxylon– felled tree and grapho – writing, drawing). Its essence was that the original text, written in ink on paper, was ground onto a carefully planed surface of the board. The engraver cut wood around the strokes of the resulting mirror image. From the resulting form it was possible to obtain up to 2000 impressions in one day.
Typeface was also invented in China. The first attempts at printing were made in 1041–1048 by the Chinese Bi Sheng. He used a typesetting mold with clay type fixed with a composition of resin and wax on an iron plate. Litera ( from lat.lit(t) era– letter) - a rectangular block with a relief (convex) image of a letter, number or any other sign. Over time, letters began to be made from wood, and then from metal and plastic.
Subsequently, the Chinese achieved even greater success in the development of printing technology. For example, Wang Zheng's book Nong Shu, first published back in 1314, contained a chapter on “Movable Type Printing.” It proposed principles of printing technology that were not used in China, but were used in Europe until the mid-20th century. The main reason for the lack of demand for advanced technologies and discoveries, as researchers believe, was the complex and inconvenient hieroglyphic writing of the Chinese for printing. The alphabet in this regard was much better, and that is why other peoples who had alphabetic writing took advantage of the developments of the Chinese. The first who, already in the 13th century, began to widely use printing with metal letters were the Koreans. After the transition to a new alphabet in 1420, the printing process became noticeably simpler.
A revolution in printing production was carried out by the German engineer and inventor Johann Guttenberg (1399–1468), who proposed a new, high-performance printing technology. Firstly, he invented a type casting mold, the essence of which was that the engraver made a metal bar, at the end of which there was a mirror image of the letter. Such a block was called a “punch”. A matrix was squeezed out with a punch in a plate of relatively soft metal (for example, copper), and any required number of letters was cast from the matrices inserted into the type casting mold. The first fonts included a very large set of different characters. For example, in the Bible published by Guttenberg, the font contained 290 characters. This number of characters was needed to represent the handwritten appearance of the book.
To obtain an impression from a printing plate, it was necessary to first coat it with paint (the first stage). Then a sheet of paper was placed on the set (second stage). This sheet had to be pressed firmly and evenly, and then the finished print had to be removed from the set (third stage). The manual printing press, invented by Guttenberg, mechanized only the third, but very important stage, since it made it possible to create high pressure - about 8 kg / cm 2. For example, a force of 4.5 tons had to be applied to a sheet of the Bible with a format of 8.2x19 cm! A mechanized printing press made it possible to create such pressure by rotating a pressure screw using a lever.
In addition, Guttenberg ensured that the pressure plate could be mechanically not only lowered, but also raised. At the same time, the form easily moved out from under the press for applying paint and accurately laying paper on the form. The design of Gutenberg's machine was so successful that it was preserved without fundamental design changes for about 350 years.
Along with printing alphabetic texts, printing engineers worked on reproducing images. For example, the first typographic display of an ornament in a book printed from type was achieved by the German printer P. Schöffer in 1457 on the pages of the Mainz Psalter, and in 1461 in Bamberg A. Pfister published books with wood-engraved illustrations.
Works of Western European printing art came to Russia soon after Gutenberg's invention. However, Russian works appeared much later. Thus, printing in Moscow began in the 50s of the 16th century. The first printing house appeared in the house of the priest Sylvester.
In 1563, the first state printing house began its work in Russia. Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Timofeev Mstislavets worked here. They worked on the first Russian printed book, “The Apostle,” from April 19, 1563 to March 1, 1564. A feature of Russian fonts was the use of superscripts separate from the main letters. This made it possible to imitate the appearance of a handwritten book. In Russia at that time they had not yet made a typographic alloy from lead, antimony and tin, so tin was used for casting fonts, which, however, could not withstand large print runs.
It should be noted that, along with the development of printing technology itself, a major role in the development of printing was played by the so-called “typometry” - a typographical system of measures proposed by the Frenchman P.S. Fournier in 1737 and subsequently improved by F. Didot. Typometry is a system for measuring elements of type and typesetting, in which the French inch is taken as a basis. The basic units of typometry are the point, equal to 1/72 of an inch (0.376 mm), and the square, equal to 48 points (18.04 mm).
However, true progress in the field of printing technology occurred only when market demand for mass printed products arose. This happened in the middle of the 18th century. Life led to the need to quickly produce newspapers and magazines in large circulations, and Gutenberg's printing press could no longer cope with these tasks.
The intensification of the printing process became possible only with the advent of the printing press, invented by the German Friedrich König. Initially, in its design, known as the “Zul Press,” the first stage was mechanized - the process of applying ink to the printing plate, but sheets of paper were still applied and removed manually, and the machine was driven by the power of the printer himself. IN early XIX century, Koenig took another step towards creating a high-speed printing press, in which the flat pressure plate was replaced by a rotating cylinder.
An important date in the history of the development of printing and, especially, newspaper business was the date of November 29, 1814, when for the first time the entire circulation of the London newspaper “Times” was printed on a Koenig machine driven by a steam engine. The labor productivity of this machine was 10 times higher than that of previous devices.
König machines also worked in Russia (392 of the first 2000 produced by 1873), but the very first König printing machine in Russia was manufactured back in 1829 at the Aleksandrovskaya manufactory for the St. Petersburg newspaper “Northern Bee”.
Advances in technology have led to various upgrades in the printing press. Printing engineers noticed that in flatbed printing machines the printing form performed reciprocating movements. This complicated the mechanism, and the reverse motion was useless. Therefore, the idea arose to use the rotational (rotation-based) principle. This principle was first used for printing purposes in 1848 by Augustus Applegate. The first rotary press installed at the Times printing plant operated at a speed of 10,000 copies per hour. In Russia, the first German-made rotary machine appeared in 1878.
Along with the improvement of printing machines, patents for inventions of typesetting machines appeared, the first of which was issued to the Englishman W. Church in 1822. In 1867, Russian inventor P.P. Knyagininsky created the first automatic typesetting machine. In 1884, O. Mergenthaler (USA) patented a machine - linotype ( from lat.linea– line and Greek.typos– imprint). Linotype is a typesetting line casting machine that produces typesetting in the form of monolithic metal lines with a relief printing surface. At the end of the 19th century, the widespread introduction of typesetting and stitching-binding machines into production began.
The idea of photographic typesetting was put forward in 1894 by the Hungarian E. Porcelt, and the first phototypesetting machine appeared in 1895 (inventor V.A. Gassiev). Phototypesetting is the process of making photographic forms (negatives, positives) printed publications for subsequent production of printing forms.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, gravure and offset printing machines were developed. In the 20th century, there was a transition from machines that mechanized individual production operations to automated production lines. At the beginning of the twentieth century, printing machines switched to electric drive. In the 30s - 40s of the twentieth century, electrical control - blocking and measuring devices appeared. In the 50s and 60s, the introduction of electronics made it possible to significantly reduce the time and labor costs for the production of printed materials.
Along with the development of in-line printing technologies, there was also the development of individual devices for hand writing. Thus, in the late 1930s, the Hungarians Laszlo and Biro invented the ballpoint pen, which has now practically replaced the fountain pen. A metal ball at the end of the tube with paste made it possible to write without blots or blots.
In the conditions of the emergence and development of monopoly capitalism, the role of the media increased noticeably, which predetermined and conditioned progress in the field of book printing. Technical achievements in printing found expression in the mechanization of printing and typesetting processes, the development of lithography, the emergence of printing engineering as an independent branch of machine-factory production. Nemirovsky E. L. Essays on history printing technology. Italic.-No. 1-98.-P.43.
One of the greatest achievements in printing technology of the 19th century. was the first cylindrical type printing press, invented back in 1811 by the German Friedrich Koenig and his compatriot Bauer. Previously in manual machine flat boards were used for printing, first wooden and then metal. A set form coated with paint was placed on a flat board (thaler), to which a sheet of paper was pressed with another board (pian) using a deckle. The Koenig and Bauer fast printing machine proposed a fundamentally different design. A sheet of paper wound on a cylinder-drum was rolled over a form mounted on a thaler with a set that received paint from a system of rotating rollers. For the first time, the reciprocating motion of the piano, which pressed the paper against the thaler, was replaced by the rotational movement of the cylinder, and the feeding and application of paint to the form was mechanized. The new high-speed printing machine has significantly increased the productivity of the printing process. If a manual press could print 100 prints per hour, then the Koenig and Bauer machine produced over 800 prints.
This invention had a huge impact on the development of printing engineering. The first plant of this profile was created in 1817 in Germany. On its basis, the company “Schnellpressenfabrik Konig und Brayer”, the world's largest association for the production of printing machines, subsequently arose.
In the second half of the 19th century. technological processes have become more complicated printing production, new designs of printing equipment were improved and developed, which made it possible to mechanize a number of basic production operations. Stefanov S.I. Technologies and civilizations. Bulletin of technology in the field of printing and print advertising. - 2006.- No. 1. P. 2. Improvements were also made to the Koenig fast printing machine: its kinematics and the manufacturing technology of individual parts and assemblies were improved. The trajectory of the thaler changed, the composition of the elastic mass for paint rollers changed, the main components of which were glycerin and gelatin. The problem of registration and seasoning was solved. In the first case, an exact ratio of printed stripes was ensured on both sides of the sheet and on the spread; in the second, careful adherence of the paper to the surface of the feed drum was achieved. In addition, methods for automatically feeding paper onto a cylinder and then removing it were widely introduced. With the use of the steam engine, which was later replaced by the electric drive, the drives of printing machines changed qualitatively. As a result of significant design changes, the performance of Koenig machines has increased.
In 1863, inventor William Bullock created a fundamentally new rotary printing press. Bullock's machine printed on both sides of a paper ribbon that fed onto a cylinder, which pressed it against another cylinder with a stereotype on it. Thus, for the first time all process was ensured by the rotation of the cylinders, which eliminated the reasons that limited the productivity of Koenig machines. Already the first samples of Bullock’s rotary machine produced 15 thousand impressions per hour; Subsequently, significant design changes made it possible to double this figure.
In parallel with the development of printing, the technology of casting letters and whole words was improved. Back in 1838, in New York, the inventor Bras created a device for casting type, which became the prototype of a universal typesetting machine of the early 20th century, the best models of which made it possible to compose tens of thousands of printed characters into lines and stripes in one day. The technology for manufacturing punches and dies was further developed. Systematization and ordering of fonts were carried out.
The increase in printed output required speeding up the typesetting process. The manual typesetter, who typed no more than a thousand letters per hour, i.e. 25 lines, was replaced by typesetting machines with a keyboard designed on the principle of a modern typewriter.
An outstanding role in the development of typesetting machines belongs to Russian inventors. In 1866, mechanic P.P. Klyaginsky created the original “automatic compositor”. I.N. Livchak and D.A. Timiryazev made a great contribution to the creation and development of matrix beating machines. Romano F. Modern technologies publishing and printing industry. - M.: 2006.- P. 454 In 1870, engineer M.I. Alisov built the first samples of typesetting machines, the speed of which was 80-120 characters per minute.
The first type-setting machine that was widely used was designed in 1886 in the USA by O. Mergenthaler and called “Linotype.” Two years later, Canadians Rogers and Bright created a new type of casting machine - the “typograph.” In 1892, it was built Lanston's "monotype", and in 1893 - Scudder's "monoline" The invention and rapid spread of typesetting machines, as well as the development and creation of phototypesetting structures, made it possible not only to increase the number of products produced, but also to make significant changes in the artistic design of the book. .
Labor-intensive and expensive copper engraving was replaced by lithography, discovered by Alois Senefelder. In lithographic printing, prints were made by transferring ink under pressure from a non-relief surface directly onto paper. New way as a type of flat printing was determined by the position of the printed elements in the same plane with the entire surface of the printing plate. The lithographic printing method quickly monopolized the printing industry. Artistic lithography became the most widespread.
The intensification and significant expansion of printing production caused in the second half of the 19th century. the emergence of new, more advanced models of printing engineering. Specialized associations for the production of printing equipment were created. The largest of them were: BrepMaHnn "SchnellpresseniabrikHeidelberg" (1850), "Faber und Schleicker" (1871), in Italy - "Nebiolo" (1852), in the USA - "Goss" (1885) , "Milet" (1890).
In Russia, along with equipment imported from abroad, in the 80s and 90s of the 19th century. its own printing engineering industry developed. Initially, the production of printing machines and machine tools was concentrated at the Izhevsk plant and the Aleksandrovskaya manufactory. Later they began to be produced by the St. Petersburg plant of I. Goldberg. In 1897, a printing machine was first invented and built in Russia securities, designed by technician I.I. Orlov. The image from the printing form was first transferred to elastic rollers, and then to a prefabricated form, from which the impression was made.
New types of printing quickly developed: woodcut, linocut, zincography, squeegee printing, screen printing and intaglio printing. Along with large printing machines, a significant number of special models appeared for printing cards, forms, covers, and various special documentation. The production of text and illustrative printing forms was improved, and finishing production processes were further improved: stitching, binding, embossing.
The most characteristic feature of progress in the field of printing engineering was the creation of new models of printing presses with significantly improved technical characteristics. In parallel with this, typesetting and phototypesetting machines were improved.
The technology of illustrating printed publications was further developed.
Modern printing technology includes three main stages, without which no printing house can do: pre-press, printing and post-press processes.
The pre-press production process ends with the creation of a storage medium from which text, graphic and illustrative elements can be transferred to paper (printing plate production).
The printing process, or printing itself, produces printed sheets. For their production, a printing machine and a carrier of information prepared for printing (printing form) are used.
At the third stage of printing technology, called the post-printing process, final processing and finishing of sheets of paper (prints) printed in a printing machine are carried out to give the resulting printed product a marketable appearance (brochure, book, booklet, etc.).
Prepress process. At this stage, one or more (for multicolor products) printing plates must be obtained for printing a certain type of work.
If the printing is single-color, then the form can be a sheet of plastic or metal (aluminum), on which a drawing is applied in a direct (readable) image. The surface of the offset plate is processed in such a way that, despite the fact that the printing and non-printing elements are practically in the same plane, they selectively accept the ink applied to it, ensuring that an impression is obtained on paper during printing. If multicolor printing is required, then the number of printing plates must correspond to the number of printing inks; the image is first divided into individual colors or inks.
The basis of pre-press processes is color separation. Isolating the constituent colors of a color photograph or other halftone drawing is a daunting task. To perform such complex printing work, electronic scanning systems, powerful computer and software, special output devices for photographic film or plate material, various auxiliary equipment, as well as the presence of highly qualified, trained specialists.
Such a prepress system costs at least 500 - 700 thousand dollars. Therefore, most often, in order to significantly reduce investments in the organization of printing houses, they resort to the services of special reproduction centers. Having everything necessary to carry out pre-press work, they prepare sets of color-separated transparencies to order, from which sets of color-separated printing plates can be produced in a conventional printing house.
Printing process. The printing plate is the basis of the printing process. As already mentioned, the offset printing method is currently widespread in printing, which, despite its almost
100 years of existence, constantly improving, remaining dominant in printing technology.
Offset printing is carried out on printing machines, the operating principle of which was discussed above.
Post-press process. The post-printing process consists of a number of important operations that give the printed copies a marketable appearance.
If sheet-fed publications were printed, they need to be trimmed and trimmed to specific formats. For these purposes, paper-cutting equipment is used, ranging from hand-held cutters to high-performance cutting machines designed to simultaneously cut hundreds of sheets of paper of all formats common in practice.
For sheet products, post-printing processes end after cutting. The situation is more complicated with multi-leaf products. In order to bend the sheets of a magazine or book, you need folding equipment on which folding takes place ( from him. falzen – to bend) – sequential folding of printed sheets of a book, magazine, etc.
If you need to make a brochure or book consisting of separate sheets from prints printed and cut into separate sheets, they need to be matched to one another. For this purpose, sheet-picking equipment is used. When the collection is complete, you end up with a thick stack of loose sheets. In order for the sheets to be combined into a brochure or book, they must be stapled. Currently, two types of fastening are most widespread - wire and seamless adhesive. Wire binding is mainly used for brochures, i.e. printed publications from 5 to 48 pages. Booklet makers are used for fastening with wire staples. These devices can be used separately or
in combination with sheet collecting systems. More complex work is performed on special wire sewing machines.
To fasten a large number of sheets, adhesive bonding is used, which is carried out either using “cold” glue - polyvinyl acetate emulsion, or hot melt hot melt adhesive. The spine of the future book edition is coated with glue, firmly holding the sheets until the glue dries completely. The advantages of this technology are the good appearance of the book, the flexibility and stability of the book block, strength and durability.
There are similar processes in the work of small and medium-circulation printing houses. However, the main printing equipment of these printing houses is not offset machines, but duplicators capable of reproducing both single-color and multi-color copies.
Topic II
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
V.L. Khmylev
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
MEDIA
Khmylev V.L. Equipment and technology of mass media: Textbook. manual /Vol. Polytechnic Univ. - Tomsk, 2003. - 107 p.
The manual briefly outlines the theoretical issues of the course “Mechanics and Technology of Mass Media”. For each topic, both theoretical material and questions for repetition and consolidation are presented. The manual was prepared at the Department of Cultural Studies and Social Communication of the Faculty of Humanities, complies with the State Educational Standard and is intended for students of the specialty “Public Relations” 350400 of the Institute of Distance Education.
Published according to the resolution of the Editorial and Publishing Council
Tomsk Polytechnic University.
Reviewers:
V.M. Ushakov – professor of the department applied mechanics Institute of Economics and Entrepreneurship TSPU, academician of MANEB, Doctor of Technical Sciences.
V.V. Bendersky – General manager CJSC "Tomsky Vestnik", candidate of technical sciences.
Templan 2003
Tomsk Polytechnic University, 2003
INTRODUCTION........................................................ ........................................................ ................................ 4
Topic I
TECHNOLOGY AND PRINTING TECHNOLOGY.................................................... .................................... 5
Development of printing equipment and technology.................................................... .... 5
Methods of modern printing................................................................... .............................................. 9
Modern publishing and printing technology.................................................... .15
Main stages of printing production................................................................. ........ 20
Questions for review for the first topic................................................... ........................... 22
Topic II
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.................................................... .................... 23
The formation of photographic equipment and technology.................................................... .23
Modern photographic technology and
photographic methods................................................... ........................................................ .29
Expressive means of photography......................................................... ........................... 32
Optics in photography........................................................ ........................................................ ......... 36
Setting optical and exposure parameters.................................................... .. 38
Questions for review for the second topic.................................................. ........................... 52
Topic III
TECHNOLOGY AND FILM TECHNOLOGY.................................................... ........................................... 53
Filming equipment and visual means of cinema.................................................. 53
Features of filming for television.................................................................... ....... 56
Questions for review for the third topic................................................... ............................... 60
Topic IV
EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY OF RADIO BROADCASTING.................................................... ............. 60
Technical means of radio broadcasting................................................................... ........................... 60
Radio station and its equipment.................................................... ........................................... 64
Expressive means of radio................................................................... ........................................... 70
Production of basic radio programs................................................................... ........................ 73
News radio broadcasts................................................... ................................................... 73
Live performances and interviews............................................................ ........................... 76
Telephone interviews and recorded comments................................................................. ............... 76
Correspondent materials........................................................ ........................................ 76
Programming the broadcast network................................................................... ........................... 78
Questions for review for the fourth topic.................................................. ........................ 78
Theme V
TELEVISION EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY.................................................... ............... 79
Technical means of television broadcasting.................................................................... ............ 79
Modern television technology................................................................... ........................... 84
Transmitting television camera, video camera.................................................... ......... 95
VCR. Video cassettes and video discs...................................................... ......... 100
Television studio and its equipment.................................................... ............................................... 108
Questions for review for the fifth topic.................................................. ........................... 110
LIST OF REFERENCES USED.................................................................... ............ 110
INTRODUCTION
The development of various types of communications, the formation of an information society, the growing globalization of national and international relations in beginning of XXI centuries have increased interest in the comprehensive study of information technology and technology. IN educational plan This trend was reflected in the emergence in educational programs humanities faculties with specialties in “Journalism”, “Public Relations”, special courses “Media Engineering and Technology”. In this regard, the proposed textbook is designed to facilitate independent study by humanities students of both the technical means of the media system and the techniques and technological features of the work of a modern journalist.
The need for this manual is determined by the fact that until now there has been no manual in the educational literature that fully corresponds to the program of the State educational standard in this discipline for the specialty “Public Relations”. The publication of this textbook will help students master the extensive material in the course “Engineering and Technology of Media” not only in distance learning, but also in full-time, part-time and full-time forms of study.
Structurally, the textbook “Technology and Technology of the Media” is presented in the form of a package containing five topics, respectively devoted to the consideration of technology and technology of periodicals, photography, cinema, radio broadcasting and television. These sections discuss the basic principles technical systems, which are in the journalist’s arsenal. Here the student can obtain the information necessary for the professional use of modern technical means of disseminating information.
The textbook was written at the Department of Cultural Studies and Social Communication for TPU students studying in the specialty “Public Relations”.
Topic I
PRINTING EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
Modern printing methods
In the modern printing industry, several types of printing are used - offset, letterpress, gravure, screen, etc. Their names reflect the peculiarities of the technological principles underlying various printing devices.
Offset printing. This method is currently the most common and technologically advanced printing method. For many decades, more than half of publishing and advertising products have been printed using the offset method.
Offset printing ( from English offset) is a type of flatbed printing in which ink is transferred from a printing plate to the surface of a rubber sheet. From there it is transferred to paper or other printed material. This allows you to print thin layers of ink on rough papers. The principle of offset printing was proposed in 1905 in the USA. The first offset printing machine was created there. For each working cycle of such a machine, the printing plate is moistened, ink is rolled onto the printing elements, paper is fed, printing itself occurs, and the finished print is output to the receiving table.
Offset printing later became widespread in the world printing industry thanks to the mechanization of plate processes and the high productivity of printing machines, which made it possible not only to significantly increase the circulation of publications, but also to print a variety of printed products, including multicolor ones.
The principle of offset printing technology is based on selective wetting of the printing elements with paint, and the blank elements with an aqueous solution, which is achieved by applying films with different molecular surface properties to the surface of the printed and blank areas of the form, which steadily perceive either moisture or paint.
During the printing process, the plate is alternately wetted with an aqueous solution or paint, then the image is transferred under pressure to the surface of a rubber plate or roller, and then to paper. Those. With such a double transfer of the image, the paper does not come into direct contact with the printing plate. This technology has dramatically reduced the pressure required during printing, reduced plate wear, increased printing speed and improved image quality.
Offset printing uses monometallic and polymetallic printing plates. Monometallic printing plates are aluminum or zinc plates that undergo complex electrochemical preparation on automated electroplating lines to increase the adsorption capacity and increase the wear resistance of its surface.
Polymetallic forms are created on the basis of two metals with different molecular surface properties: copper - for creating stable printing elements and nickel (it can be replaced with chromium, stainless steel) - for space elements. Polymetallic plates are usually made on an aluminum or steel base, on which a film of copper up to 10 microns thick and nickel or chromium with a thickness of 1 - 3 microns is applied to the entire surface of the plate.
Printing elements on monometallic or polymetallic plates are created using a photochemical method, copying an image through a negative or slide onto a photosensitive copy layer. Such layers are made from high-molecular compounds (albumin, Siberian larch gum, polyvinyl alcohol) and chromium salts, or diazo compounds, with the addition of film-forming substances or photopolymers. The products of the photochemical reaction of chromium salts have a tanning effect. When copying in illuminated areas, the layer tans (hardens) and loses its ability to dissolve in water. From unlit areas protected by opaque elements of a negative or transparencies, the layer is removed during development, and an image is created on the plate - printing elements.
The most widely used are copy layers based on diazo compounds, in which, under the influence of light, photochemical decomposition occurs in the illuminated areas and the copy layer is removed from the plate during development. When using photopolymers, under the influence of light in illuminated areas, polymerization of the copy layer occurs, which does not dissolve in water. From unlit areas the layer is removed during development.
Copy layers applied in a thin layer on metal plates retain their properties for a long time (more than a year), so there are specialized enterprises where metals are prepared and then photosensitive layers are applied.
Printing elements on monometal are created on a copy layer, protected during copying by opaque areas of the transparency and remaining after the copy is developed. On polymetallic plates, the copy layer is removed from the printing elements after development and remains as temporary protection in the blank areas. Then chemical or electrochemical etching of the top metal (nickel or chromium) is carried out to a layer of copper, after which the protective layer is removed from the space elements. With all methods of producing forms, after creating the printing elements, the space elements are treated with a hydrophilizing solution to give them stable hydrophilic properties.
Individual operations production of monometallic molds (developing, washing, drying) is carried out on mechanized installation x, copy processing processes and production of polymetallic molds - on mechanized lines.
The invention of the offset method produced a true revolution in printing. It became possible to produce lightweight and cheap printing forms on aluminum plates. The use of offset fabric as an intermediate material that absorbs printing pressure created a gentle regime for the printing form itself, and a flexible printing form made it possible to switch to the rotational principle of constructing printing machines, which led to a sharp increase in printing speed. For example, modern roll-fed rotary offset printing machines operate at speeds of up to 100,000 rpm for an offset cylinder with a circumference of more than a meter and a printed strip of up to 2 meters.
Recently, a new so-called seamless offset printing technology has begun to be introduced into printing practice. In Western terminology, it is called “Sleeve technology”. This technology has made it possible to increase printing speed and ensure continuous movement of the paper web during the printing process.
Intaglio printing. With this method, the printing and space elements are at different heights. Intaglio printing is based on filling recessed printing areas with ink. The printing elements on a gravure printing plate are cells of different volumes that are filled with low-viscosity liquid ink. The intaglio printing method is a printing technology in which the transfer of images and text onto printed material is carried out from a printing plate on which the printing elements are recessed in relation to the white space elements. The whitespace elements are at the same level, interconnected and form an unbroken mesh surface.
Different tonality of the image on the print is ensured by different thicknesses of the paint layer. Moreover, in the traditional intaglio printing method, the depth of the printing elements in the dark areas of the image is greatest, and in the light areas it is the smallest. Another characteristic of this printing method is that during the printing process the intaglio printing form is completely filled with ink. That is, the ink fills all printing and all whitespace elements. Since with the intaglio printing method, ink is applied to both the printing and whitespace elements of the form, before obtaining a print it is necessary to remove the paint from the surface of the whitespace elements of the printing form. In printing machines, this operation is performed using a thin knife made of elastic steel tape - a squeegee.
In the vast majority of cases, industrial-scale intaglio printing is performed on rotary presses, and intaglio printing plates are usually produced directly on plate cylinders.
The main advantage of the intaglio printing method is the ability to create halftones of the image on the print due to different thicknesses of the ink layer. The cells (printing elements) of the printing plate, which transfer ink to the printed material, have different volumes depending on the tone created on the print. The more saturated the tone (color), the larger the cell volume.
The production of a printing plate with in-depth printing elements can be achieved chemically (acid etching) or mechanically (engraving with cutters and other tools).
Among the most commonchemicalmethods include etching (from Frencheau - forte– nitric acid). This The method of making a printing form (engraving) combines hand engraving methods with chemical etching. When etching, a copper or zinc plate with a thickness of 0.5 to 2.5 mm is coated with acid-resistant varnish or acid-resistant primer, which includes wax, rosin, and asphalt. The lines of the design are scratched across the varnish film (primer), exposing the surface of the metal. The plate is then etched with acid several times.
After the first etching, sufficient to slightly deepen the strokes in the lightest areas of the image, these areas are covered with a protective varnish, excluding them from further etching processes. Then the plate is subjected to a second etching, and areas of the next tone gradation are varnished. Thanks to this, the strokes are of varying depths. Finally, the varnish is removed.
To the numbermechanicalmethods belongs to incisive engraving. This the oldest type of in-depth metal engraving, consisting of hand-cutting strokes using special tool– cutter (stihel). The material for making the mold is copper or steel plates with a thickness of 2.5 to 4 mm with rounded edges. A resin primer is applied to the smoothly polished surface of the plate, onto which the design is transferred, and then scratched with a needle so that it only lightly touches the surface of the metal. The outlines of the image are engraved with a graver. The deeper the cutter goes, the thicker the ink line on the print turns out to be.
The listed methods can be used for the manufacture of printing forms when reproducing single-color and multi-color images on a print. Most often, etching is used to reproduce multicolor images.
In modern printing, the technological process of manufacturing printing plates for the intaglio printing method is based on a combination of photochemical, electrochemical and mechanical processes. It consists of the following operations: 1) preparation of the form material; 2) production of transparencies of individual elements of the photo form and their installation; 3) copying - transferring the installation onto the form material; 4) etching the form and preparing it for printing.
Intaglio printing plates are produced directly on the plate cylinder of the printing machine. Unlike other types of printing, in gravure printing, transparencies are copied not directly onto plate material, but onto pigment paper, followed by transfer of the gelatin layer of pigment paper onto the copper jacket of the plate cylinder. The greatest depth of the printing elements reaches 80 microns, and the minimum – 6 microns. This is the range of changes in the thickness of the ink layer that creates halftones on the print. This printing plate making method is known as the pigment plate making method. Recently, a pigment-free method of image transfer by direct laser engraving of the original image directly on the plate cylinder has been widely used.
Currently, for the production of printed products using the intaglio printing method, only high-performance rotary multi-section roll printing machines are used.
High productivity is an important advantage of gravure printing. High printing speeds are possible due to the continuity of the working surface of the printing form (no seams or grooves) and the use of inks based on volatile solvents, which ensure their fast fixation.
However, in modern conditions In the production of printed products, intaglio printing is used relatively rarely. This is due to the high cost of this method, which leads to the concentration of large production capacities, which in many cases makes it difficult to use them at a sufficiently effective level, as well as the significant costs of manual labor that exist here, especially at the final (control and proofreading) stage of manufacturing plate cylinders. Due to the significant complexity and duration of production of plate cylinders and printing forms used in intaglio printing, the use of this method is beneficial only when printing large runs - from approximately 70 - 250 thousand.
impressions.
However, intaglio printing is quite widely used in the production of mass magazine products with a large number of illustrations, albums with photo illustrations, postcards, and portraits.
Letterpress printing. This method has been used by printers for over a thousand years. The first printing forms were flat wooden boards with a flat and smooth surface, on which the image was produced by cutting out (deepening) non-printing white space elements. Letterpress printing was thus achieved by deepening those areas of the printing plate
which should not be exposed to paint. At the same time, the printing process was carried out
from elevated areas. This made it possible, when rolling elastic rollers with ink, to apply it selectively, only to the printing elements, and transfer the ink from them to the printing surface.
Due to the ease and speed of printing plates (especially for text reproduction), good product quality and high productivity, letterpress printing is widely used for printing newspapers, magazines, books and color illustrations. Characteristic features of prints obtained by letterpress printing are high clarity of image elements, good contrast and the presence of a small relief on back side leaf.
Modern letterpress text forms are made on typesetting
and phototypesetting machines.
Letterpress printing plates can be primary or secondary. Primary, or original, letterpress plates are flat plates designed to be printed. Primary forms also include flexible forms, the relief image on which is obtained by etching spaces on a metal plate or by processing printing forms in a photopolymer layer applied to the substrate. Secondary forms are otherwise called stereotypes. They are produced from primary, original molds for the purpose of duplicating them and producing round molds for printing on a rotary printing press.
Modern secondary letterpress plates are made from metal, plastic or rubber. Printing from flat plates is done on crucible, so-called flatbed printing machines; from round shapes - on sheet or roll rotary machines. Today, the method of offset printing has become widespread. Its essence is that the image from the printing plate is transferred first to a rubber sheet (a cylinder lined with rubber), and from it to paper. Modern rotary letterpress printing machines make it possible to print illustrated multicolor newspapers, magazines, and books on a continuous paper web up to 2 m wide at a speed of up to 15 m/s. Thus, the letterpress printing method is mainly used in large-scale printing presses.
Screen printing. This printing method was developed by Thomas Edison back in 1875. It has found wide application in small and medium-circulation printing devices. The principle of printing is to transmit an image using a printing form, which is a mesh (stencil), through the cells of the printing elements of which printing ink is pressed. The printed mesh form can be made of polymers, silk, copper. In gap areas it is covered with a protective layer. Since the paint layer can reach a large thickness
(up to 80 microns and above), screen printing is used for marking products, during manufacturing printed circuit boards, printing books for the blind. There are several varieties of this method: classic screen printing and rotary (risographic) printing.
Short run printing systems
Low-volume printing devices include various printers and copiers. Desktop printers are divided into matrix, inkjet and laser devices.
Matrix (needle) printers. Such printers are among the very first automatic printing devices. The printing principle of dot-matrix printers is as follows: an electrical impulse is sent to the print head element (the so-called needle) at the right moment in time, which activates an electromagnet. The ink ribbon is hit and an imprint appears on the paper. The size of the needle print determines the graphic resolution of the dot matrix printer when printing. The number of print head needles plays an important role: the more there are, the higher the quality and speed of printing.
Modern pin printers use a print head
with 9 or 24 needles controlled by magnets. The speed of the latter and the number of printing needles mainly determine the printing speed. Printing is carried out by horizontal movement of the head (carriage) with its needles through an ink ribbon tucked into a special cassette (cartridge). The transition to the next line is achieved by synchronized movement of the paper.
Modern printers typically have a print dot size of about 0.25 mm and a vertical resolution (along the sheet) of about 180 dots per inch (dpi). The speed of these printers when printing the simplest fonts, especially 24-point fonts, is very high and reaches several dozen A4 sheets per minute. However, printing with more complex fonts reduces the document output speed several times (performance is provided in the range of 25 - 500 characters per minute).
Pin printers have the flexibility to output other fonts using appropriate drivers and various character matrix formats.
When color printing on needle printers, a multi-color ribbon is used, on which several strips of different dyes are applied. To obtain shades, the image is rasterized. Raster ( German Raster – lattice) is used for structural transformation of a directional light beam. There are 1) transparent rasters, 2) in the form of alternating transparent and opaque elements, 3) reflective rasters with specularly reflective and absorbing (or scattering) elements.
Rasterization is used when reproducing halftone originals at the stage of copying or photographing in order to obtain a fine-dot image. Despite the versatility of matrix technology, it is best used for printing text. Modern dot matrix printers work with A4 or A3 paper formats and have various ways paper feed, they print on the forward and reverse stroke of the carriage, and have a convenient user interface.
The costs of printing on dot matrix printers are low: this is reflected in the low cost consumables And maintenance. This is a big plus compared to other types of printers. Home distinctive feature dot matrix printers is that it is possible to print through carbon paper, unlike others where it is necessary to print copies sequentially, which increases the cost of printing. Dot matrix printers are not demanding on paper quality.
Printers based on thermal printing technology in their design they are very close to matrix printers (they use a print head equipped with a matrix of heating elements and special paper impregnated with a heat-sensitive dye). The thermal print head matrix produced using thick film technology can have more high resolution(up to 200 dpi), however, inertia and a number of other fundamental limitations of the printing process do not allow a significant increase in printing speed, which is usually 40 - 120 characters per minute. The disadvantages of such a printer include insufficient brightness, image contrast and the need to use special expensive paper. The advantages of thermal printers are low noise level during operation, compactness, reliability, and the absence of refillable consumables. Thermal printing technology is rarely used today.
Inkjet printers. A higher class of printers is formed with triple printers. Fundamentally with Inkjet printers differ from dot matrix and thermal printers in their print head. The inkjet technology underlying this class of printer uses a method of “throwing” drops of dye onto the paper. The print matrix of such a printer is a set of nozzles to which ink tanks and control mechanisms are connected. The disadvantage of inkjet printers is their high ink requirements, and image quality is highly dependent on the type of paper.
Modern inkjet printers for mass use typically have a resolution of 600 or 720 dpi and can print with satisfactory quality on plain paper and with high quality on special paper. Recently, inkjet printers have been approaching laser printers in terms of print quality and speed. The latest models of inkjet printers print 4 - 5 pages per minute, and some models print 10 - 12 pages per minute.
Laser printers. The highest quality and technically advanced are laser printers. They use the photosensitivity property of a number of materials that change their surface electrostatic charge when exposed to light. To implement this process, in addition to the paper feeding mechanism, these printers contain a photosensitive drum, a mirror scanning system, focusing devices and a laser diode (or LED matrix).
After charging and point-by-point illumination of the photosensitive drum corresponding to the image being formed, a special coloring powder - toner - is supplied to it and fixed in accordance with the distribution of the electric charge. Next, the paper is rolled over the drum and the toner is removed from it. The final fixation of the image on the paper is achieved by heating it to the melting temperature of the toner.
The features of this process are characterized by small dot sizes of the image matrix, which is reflected in the characteristics of the resolution of laser printers, which in practice is
300 - 1200 dpi. The high resolution of printers allows them to be used for printing a variety of text and graphic information, up to the production of printed layouts and forms.
To ensure graphics printing, laser devices usually have a buffer memory of up to 1 MB.
These printers use regular and high-quality paper, print text and graphics at speeds from 4 to 20 (or more) A4 (A3) sheets per minute, i.e. they output text information at speeds of about 160 - 2000 characters per minute and are almost silent at work.
Laser printers require qualified maintenance, and operating and depreciation costs are included in the cost of their products. Laser printing more expensive than other groups of printing devices, however, prices for laser printers are continuously decreasing, and the costs are justified by the very high quality of products, approaching
to the level of printing.
The principle of operation of a photocopier is in many ways similar
with the operating principle of a laser printer.
The role of a laser beam in a copier is played by a light flux reflected from a system of mirrors, which carries information about chiaroscuro to a special drum, which is otherwise called a “photoconductor” or “photoreceptor”. Under the influence of light, a latent image is formed on the drum, corresponding to the image of the copied original. In this case, toner remains in the exposed areas, and when the sheet passes the drum, the toner is transferred to the paper. The drum coating is made from various materials, both inorganic (selenium, arsenium triselenide, etc.) and organic.
The drum is also called by the name of the coating, for example: “selenium” drum. Since when toner is transferred to paper, ozone is released, which disrupts the normal composition of the air, an important parameter is the volume of ozone released. The less ozone is emitted, the better the atmosphere in the office. Organic drums produce less ozone than non-organic drums and produce better midtones. In addition, their production is much cheaper. At the end of their service life, organic drums do not require special disposal, as they do not pollute the environment.
Review questions for the first topic
1. The main stages in the development of printing equipment and technology.
2. Modern printing methods.
3. Large and medium circulation printing systems.
4. Low-volume printing systems.
5. Main stages of printing production.
Topic II
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Optics in photography
Expressive optical means of photography include: 1) various special lenses, focal length which are shorter or longer than the focal length of a normal lens, providing correct perspective, normal perception of space, and 2) light -
and color filters.
Short throw lenses allow you to increase the angle of the image. Moreover, the shorter the focal length of the lens, the larger the image angle. Using such lenses, the photographer has the ability to create the so-called spherical perspective. These are spectacular photographs capturing vast spaces. Short-focus lenses are also used when shooting crowd scenes, when it is necessary to convey a huge space with the gaze. Such lenses have the property of distorting objects and exaggerating the perspective at different angles of the camera. These include unique lenses, called “fisheye”, which provide 180° coverage of space.
Long focal length lenses, on the other hand, reduce the angle of the image and have a shallow depth of field. They are used when it is necessary to give a close-up view of an object located at a great distance from the shooting point, to bring the background closer to the foreground. In this way, you can achieve the feeling of an enclosed limited space.
By using wide angle lenses you can exaggerate the shapes of the captured objects, creating one of the variants of photographic grotesque. Photographic lenses differ not only in angle, but also in photographic pattern. Soft-drawing optics make it possible to soften sharp transitions from light to shadow and give the image a more picturesque character. There are lenses that produce sharp, hard images in a graphic manner.
Optical means of expression include various light and color filters. There are light filters that can be used to achieve effects based on physical phenomena such as diffusion and diffraction. Diffraction filters create a light pattern, the nature of which will depend on the configuration of the lines printed on the glass. A diffraction circle on a filter can turn a light source in the frame into a solid spot emitting a glow or into a fireball, and a diffraction ring will create a beautiful halo around the light source. If the pattern on the diffraction filter is in the form of a cross, then the rays coming from the light source will form a cross in the photograph.
Several lines intersecting at one point will create a decorative beam effect in the photo frame. There may be several similar patterns on the filter, but to get the desired effect, you need to visually align the point of intersection of the drawn lines with the light source. Diffusion filters can be gauze, tulle, nylon mesh, glass, lubricated with a greasy substance. Such filters, as if blurring the light, create the feeling of a slight haze enveloping objects, or immersing objects in fog. It is possible to combine the phenomena of diffusion and diffraction on one filter. So, for example, part of the surface of a light filter can be smeared with a greasy substance, causing light diffusion, and a design or sign can be applied to a clean area. Thus, part of the image in the photograph will be shrouded in fog, softening sharp transitions of light and shadow, blurring
