I did the book layout in Adobe InDesign 2. I printed the files to postscript, and then ran it through Adobe Distiller with Krehbiel's settings to produce the PDF (Adobe portable document format) files. The files for the book had a size around 3.3 Gigabytes.

From the PDFs I supplied, Krehbiel did the imposition (putting all the pages into the right order in their software). They then produced two types of proofs: the content proofs (called Dyluxes) and the color proofs (Fuji Pictros)

The Dyluxes are assembled into 16-page booklets called signatures. Books are manufactured by assembling 16 page sections. The Dyluxes come off an inkjet printer and are not intended to be an exact color match.

The Pictros are for color matching. They are produced on a printer-like device using a dye sublimation process. The output prints on thick paper and looks a lot like a photograph. The print resolution is about 400 pixels per inch (160 pixels/cm).

When the proofs are approved, the plates for the printing press are burned in a special machine.

This is the Dylux booklet of the first 16 pages of the book.

This is another Dylux booklet for the "Freeway Mass Transit" chapter. The yellow tag is where I indicated if I approved or rejected the proofs.

This is the HP inkjet that produces the Dyluxes. It has light cyan and light magenta ink tanks to increase its color gamut beyond the regular CMYK.

This is a Pictro proof sheet. Each page of the book is proofed on a separate Pictro. The Pictros are used by the pressman to match the color when they run the job.

This is the machine that makes the printing press plates from the electronic files, a Creo Trendsetter 4557. It takes a few minutes for the laser in the unit to burn each plate. This is known as direct-to-plate printing. Most printers use direct-to-plate these days, but there is still a lot of legacy film out there, especially for reprints of older books, so even C.J. Krehbiel retains the capability to make plates from film.

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