I-Trap™ In Depth

Trapping, is the esoteric art of making the final printed piece look every bit as good as the original design. Repairing the gaps and halos that invariably occur when you have flimsy paper being pulled, stretched, wetted with ink and water and smashed by heavy rollers in those ominous machines we call printing presses. Now the team that are the minds behind some of the most popular trapping programs since the late 80's presents its very best work ever - I-Trap™

What does the I in I-Trap™ stand for?

Well first, the I in I-Trap™ stands for Intelligent. I-Trap™ has one of the most sophisticated sets of trapping rules of any trapping program on the market. I-Trap™ knows how trapping should be done and is able to carefully analyze your important print job and determine where and how traps should be applied. This is done by careful consideration of ink coloring and usage, as well as special conditions for trapping to select those locations where trapping is needed. Further calculations determine the best possible location, amount and color for the actual traps. Finally the traps are artistically applied giving the very best quality.

Secondly, the I in I-Trap™ stands for Interactive. I-Trap™ inspires confidence by showing you what it will do! I-Trap™ doesn't waste your time or money by producing bad plates or film. The Interactive feedback you get from I-Trap™ will quickly teach you how to become the expert! You gain confidence and knowledge without losing time by seeing exactly what I-Trap™ will do with every trapping situation in a flash. The industries first "Graphical Configuration Tool" for manipulating ink settings in trapping saves you time and helps you learn which trap settings are best for your situation. The super fast "Trap on the Fly" feature within the Interactive page viewer lets you see the effects of trapping quickly so you know they are right before finalizing a job.

Finally the I in I-Trap™ stands for Interface. I-Trap™ has the best designed and easiest to learn "User Interface" in the industry, and the Interface doesn't stop there. I-Trap™ is able to Interfaces with some of the most widely used workflows on the market. I-Trap™ is one of the only trapping products on the market featuring an interface Wizard to help you achieve success!

So how does this Intelligent, Interactive, Interface to Trapping really work?
Well let's dive in and see!

The intelligence of I-Trap™ is contained in the smallest brain possible. This may sound strange but here's why. I-Trap™ is a raster based trapping program because raster trapping provides the best flexibility and best quality. Raster trapping is the real workhorse of trapping because it can plow through any size and complexity of job. Let's face it, it's just comparing colors. The key to the phenomenal ability of I-Trap™ is that it packs a tremendous amount of trapping intelligence into a very compact and efficient program to achieve tremendous speed. The Trapping Engine inside I-Trap™ is the engine that is extremely stable, reliable and fast.

The interaction of I-Trap™ is the result of years of involvement in the printing industry. The Lucid "Dream Team" developed the "workflow" of trapping with I-Trap™. We began by building I-Trap™ as a group of components rather than one massive application. These components are inserted into specific parts of any given workflow during the simple product installation. This integration is one of the keys to interactivity.

I-Trap™ then takes interaction to the next level by providing tools to give you control.

• I-Trap™ supports current page layout application controls for setting trapping parameters such as trap zones. Using existing tools such as plugins for Acrobat, Pagemaker and InDesign or extensions for Quark, I-Trap™ reads and understands these settings from within the Rip environment and is able to translate those settings into intelligent results within I-Trap™.



• I-Trap™ provides easy to use settings within the Rip to interact within your existing workflow. I-Trap™ is easy to configure as a part of your print queues to provide both interactive and automated processing options.



• I-Trap™ gives the ultimate in interactivity with the Interactive Viewer Application (IV). The Interactive Viewer, offers a complete new set of tools to handle even the toughest trapping jobs.

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