Pump Up Your Color
by Norman A. Harbin
Every other month, we get a request from a newspaper executive who has come back from Europe with a printed newspaper and asks, "Why can't my paper back home look like this?"
Whenever that happens, we ask for samples of the newspaper and of the ink and other materials used to produce it. We analyze them and provide a report to the customer on some of the differences that may have led to the attractive features they saw.
One thing that we commonly notice is that the newsprint was quite a bit higher in brightness. There can be absorbency differences, and sometimes higher opacity, but brightness is certainly the key issue.
We also see differences in ink density. Typically, European newspapers are printed at higher densities, which give them a little more contrast between the image and nonimage areas. And when you couple that with the brighter newsprint, it does look very attractive.
We also typically see that the pigment loading is quite a bit higher. This allows the printer to print with a much thinner ink film, which seems to help dot gain.
We also notice that the inks are a little higher in viscosity, so they penetrate a little less. Traditionally, in Europe, there are more open fountains than we see here. That could be one reason why we see the higher viscosity, but the higher pigment loading is probably the biggest difference.
Because of these observations, we recently introduced a series of high-strength inks. We call them "Performance Plus." Their essence is significantly higher pigment strength, which reduces ink-film thickness on the ink train. But the trick is to maintain stability of the ink train at this lower film thickness.
The graph represents the relationship between print density and the volume of ink required to achieve that density. If you look at the curve on the left-the yellow curve-it shows that the high-strength Performance Plus ink will have close to only half the volume of a typical AD-LITHO ink. By carrying less ink on the press and placing less ink on the sheet, we have seen a number of advantages in numerous trials that were conducted at some of our largest customers.
We have seen a couple of different ways you can gain by this. One alternative is to continue printing at your normal densities. By doing that-by placing a lot less ink on the sheet-you will see significant improvements in set-off, rub-off, dot gain and other attributes.
We also see tendencies for a wider lithographic latitude. If you have less ink on the plate and on the press, there's less volume to keep out of the nonimage area. And because the pigment loading is so much higher, you will get tremendous improvements in ink mileage, so your consumption will go way down.
Another alternative is to print at higher densities to get some of the magazine-like appearance that we see in some European newspapers. You could print at higher densities without getting into excessive film-thickness situations. That would allow you to avoid the ink set-off and rub-off problems you would normally encounter with a typical AD-LITHO ink.
So, the higher-strength inks seem to offer properties that will help satisfy reader and advertiser expectations. They should, in turn, help increase circulation and advertising revenue.
One issue that always comes up when you start dealing with higher-strength inks is the price. Because pigment is roughly 70 percent of the cost of the ink, if you increase pigment content, the price-per-pound goes up substantially. However, if you're printing at the same density, you still end up putting the same amount of pigment down on the sheet, so when you look at how much less ink is consumed, your actual ink bill remains virtually unchanged.
So, by printing in this manner, you get a lot of quality improvements at really no cost.
I want to congratulate The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. They were our first customer to convert to Performance-Plus colors, and they ended up being the only U.S. newspaper to win membership in the IFRA Color Quality Club.
I also want to thank the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as well as The Plain Dealer, all of whom spent considerable time helping us develop and evaluate formulations. With their help, we now have some new products that are truly aligned with the direction newspapers are heading to improve quality, and to better satisfy their readers and advertisers.
Norman A. Harbin is technical director of Flint Ink Corp., Ann Arbor, Mich. Phone, (313) 995-3100; fax, (313) 995-5676.