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Multiple Cinema Displays for prepress
September 4, 2007

Multiple Cinema Displays
I work at a Macintosh computer with two 23-inch Apple Cinema Displays in front of me. It looks like the console of an air traffic controller. The two displays give me 39 inches of horizontal view, and just over 12 vertical. Sometimes visitors see this and exclaim that computer greed has taken me over.

I respond that having two displays improves my productivity. It’s quite simple: I never open or close a palette; I never have to remember where to get a tool while working in Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign; I just move about, clicking and choosing. The left display is primarily for tools and palettes. The right display is clear for my work. It’s not hindered by floating tool palettes. It’s just the document.

Prepress productivity
Years ago I did a productivity study of prepress shops in California. I studied the use of film, masking materials (remember Rubylith?) and time to produce separated color pages. In some shops the productivity was low, in others it was extraordinarily high. In the cases of the high-productivity, it was access to the right material – in the correct size – at an arm’s length that seemed to make the difference. Shops that went to the trouble of cutting materials to useful sizes, and having a stock of these materials handy were measurably better at getting work done.

So, with the electronic analogy at hand, isn’t is better to reach and get, rather than flounder while trying to find something you need?

Money is time
A 23-inch Cinema Display is $879 list. Buying one is a good move for any prepress workstation (managers pay attention: give them good tools, and they get more work done!). Getting a second one is moderatly expensive at first glance, but it’s a bargain when you consider the improved productivity. BHR values for prepress are typically in the $2.00 per minute range ($120 per hour).

How much does a menu cost?
I tried this over and over again, and it works out to about six seconds to access most first-level menus, and nine seconds to access second- and third-level menus in most of the Adobe applications (Image>Adjustments>Curves, for example). If I work on images in Photoshop, I find that I must use two to three palettes per image, so that’s about 25 seconds total. If those palettes are already open, it takes about half the time to run the mouse over and get the tool (unfortunately, menus can’t be left open like palettes can). I figure I can I save approximately 41 cents per image by not having to get the palettes every time I need one.

Extrapolating this into a shift-long savings, the not-going-to-get-menus value is proportionate to the number of images and the number of jobs you process. But, I would argue that an average prepress operator handles over 100 files a day. If I estimate that I can save 41 cents per image, and I handle 100 per shift, that’s $41.00 per day in saved time NOT accessing palettes. Now, let’s look at that $879 Cinema Display again, and consider how long it takes to pay for it through improved productivity... a payback of just under five weeks.

Of course it’s easier to justify this purchase by the savings of time. If prepress pros save a few seconds here and a few more there, the time adds up. In a single shift, the time saved is significant, allowing more work to be done in a shift. Everyone benefits, especially the customer, because there is less time spent getting their job ready to print.

The economy of two displays
A second display is not an act of gluttony, it’s a commitment to productivity.

Posted by Brian Lawler on September 4, 2007 | Comments (0)