Premedia refers to all the “upstream processes which occur before a job is sent to final output. This is important because in today’s graphic communications field, output could be any of the following
Digital files of varying formats
Film to final plate output
Printing plates
Websites/HTML
CDs and multimedia
Wikipedia: Premedia is the term that is used in the design creative and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the conception of original artwork and the manufacturing of final output channel
The term “premedia” has evolved from the term “prepress”
Prepress referred to all the processes and procedures that occurred from the time original artwork was delivered, to the production of a final set of film used to create a printing plate.
Traditional prepress included several manual and labor-intensive processes, including: typesetting, mechanical preparation, copyediting, proofreading, markup (page layout), screening of continuous tone images, retouching, page assembly (film stripping), trapping, imposition, color separating, and plate making, to name a few.
Premedia still includes prepress… and much more
The premedia preparation stages can be similar across final output media
In some cases, the same job is presented in many different mediums, at the same time
In all cases, proper image preparation and file construction is crucial
Premedia offers “value added” to the client because of the technical expertise in understanding of the process and the ability to ensure correct results
PrePress Process (pre-1980s)
Ad agency/design studio
Design
Mock-up
Service provider/trade shop
Typeset, copyfit, proofread
Camera (scan)
Image assembly (film stripping)
Printer
Plate production
Printing
In the mid 1980s, three separate technologies converged, and changed premedia forever
With the introduction of Macs, PageMaker, and PostScript, the steps in prepress workflows underwent dramatic changes