I have been working in pre-press/service bureaus, advertising agencies, marketing agencies and networks as a production artist for many years. While the first half of my career was spent working in press shops the last half has been working on the agency side. Having worked in both arenas I believe it makes me a more well rounded production artist than most others who have only worked on the agency side. I have extensive knowledge of QuarkXPress, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop, experience including color edits, master pages, style sheets, cloning, adding and altering image, creating touchplates, cutting masks, creating shadows, gradients and glows, working with layers and layer masks, setting traps, clipping paths, resizing ads for different publications. creating dielines, color conversion from RGB to CMYK, creating layouts to include live, trim and bleed, building hi res files from low res art or art diretor's drawing, removing text from Photoshop and resetting in Quark or InDesign, working closely with vendors, creating PDFX-1a, etc., and a working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PC computers. Below are examples of how files are set up for press. Depending on the company/publication these preparations can vary. All below artwork was designed and/or produced for press by me.

Some files are set up at size with only a black keyline to indicate the trim.
Artwork: Ad for a special effects makeup company
Role: Designer/Production

In addition to trim and bleed marks, files will at times be set up with a
color bar and registration marks but again that depends on the printer or client.
Artwork: Postcard for Fairmont Hotel
Role: Designer/Production

The artwork seen here includes trim marks, color bar, registration marks along with job information.
Artwork: Ad for Disney's The Jungle Book
Role: Production/Assembly/Color Correction