It’s not really a code, or a secret, it’s just an enigma, wrapped in the average persons lack of expertise…or something.
I did a short for Yeet not long ago, lettered and sent it out, then came some colors. And then came the request to format it for the Alterna Publishing thingy.
It’s not all bad, I am learning some bits and figuring other bits out. For example, I am learning why so many of my fellow indie creators who said they were jumping at the chance to use the program offered by Alterna to print on newsprint for low, low prices gave up after being daunted by the required specs.
Still, I have made a good faith effort, and should know very soon that I have failed and still have much to learn. So far I have figured out on my own that one workaround I imagined will not work, specifically moving just the type from a flattened tiff (or tif, png, etc) file to another layer will not work. If you have only a flattened file, I now suspect very much that you would have to either re-letter the book, making sure to keep the lettering ‘active’ and in their several layers or risk printing the rasterized letter layer. Apparently that would be bad and make for ‘muddy’ letters…perhaps.
If you are intimately familiar with the required specs and find this frustration of a fly-by-night indie comics post-processing nightmare funny, please know I forgive you. It’s just on this side it’s a bit more like a tragedy.
