Stress Tracing & Other Pre-press

Print Designers Unite! Answer my questions HAHAHAHAh *dictator laugh*
Anyway
Who can give me a few links to good stress tracing tutorials and explinations on where and why they are used.
Um what else?.... Any good tutorial listings for halftone and colour seperations, different types of possies might be good.
Im trying to put together a "pre-press" instruction booklet and would like to learn what I can myself before I explain it to someone else.
I also want an Idea of what I need to talk about and whats not so important.
Any links or opinons welcome.
I'll even post it here when its all done.

update: got some info on the prepress and stuuuuf.
NO idea what stress tracing though, and google isnt much help
Oh and I shrunk the keys on my keyboard.
Dont ask.

from what I remember stress tracing is a test for stress on various folds and scores through-out an offset print job (not really applicable to a digital print job). I could be wrong though as it's been a while since i've needed to know about stress tracing...

Christopher Mitchell

I'm not really sure, but isn't stress tracing how they make folds and perforations during printing (offset)?

Man, thinking about prepress sure brings back a lot of memories...negative/positive right/wrong reading emulsion up/down, spot/special colors, Full-color (FC), black and white (BW), black ++ colors, overprints, pantones, match prints, cromalin proofs, film exposing, discovering a copy mistake on film, and having to strip letters (or xeroxing on acetate LOL)...

So, there's some food for thought for ya. I don't have any sites to recommend, but if you've got any questions regarding the stuff I mentioned, I might be able to help.

Anyways, good luck with that instruction booklet. :D

EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention: doodling on/vandalizing instructions on the film with a cyan marker just before sending it to press, to make sure that they follow the match print, use the special color, etc. etc.