Finding the Right Offset Printer for your Hasselblad Prints

Okay, well first rule don't go to a digital printer. Duh.
Also, a lot of offset printers aren't really interested in the high-end work as there is more money in the corporate annual report/newsletter/direct-mail biz so you want to steer away from those guys. Asking for best samples of their printed work doesn't hurt. And there are couple of ways to find out if your local offset printer can really do high-end printing work by asking the right techie questions.

1. Do they run to SWOP (standard web offset press) or have they fingerprinted their own press. SWOP is the lowest common denominator. Printers doing high-quality work turn their noses up at SWOP. Taking Hasselblad prints and running them to SWOP is like putting ketchup on caviar.

2. FM Screening/High AM Screening. The best printers run either Staccato FM screening (From Kodak), or high AM screening from Agfa (forget their brand name) or the Diamond Screening from Heidelberg. A high AM screen is 250+, avoid any printer who can't run any higher than 200. A printer who run a 10 micron FM dot is probably more anal than the 99% of all Hasselblad film camera owners.

3. Computer-to-plate. Run the bejabbers away from printers who still burn plates from film. Are you kidding me? Fuji, Creo (now Screen), Heidelberg, Screen, and Agfa all make good engines. No, there is nobody else on this list. Don't make me name the CtP manufacturers who makes engines that can't hold a 5% dot. Jeepers.

4. Workflow with a good color engine. The Prinergy and Prinect workflows both have color engines, they are smart to take your color-profiled scan and output it correctly. I don't know about the other workflows. Have a conversation with the prepress guy at the printshop, if he or she doesn't know the first thing about color profiling, then maybe look elsewhere. The shop that did the scanning of your Hasselblad prints should be able to steer you in the right direction.