The Proof Is in the Newsprint
by Carol Memmott
| |
| Tallahassee built a reel stand that allows color proofs to be printed on newsprint. |
The dilemma faced by the Democrat haunts newspapers nationwide: Expensive, color-key proofs are bright and beautiful but give the wrong expectation of what ink-on-newsprint ads will really look like.
The solution: Using spare parts, the paper's maintenance crew built a custom reel stand that feeds 35-inch butt newsprint rolls through a 36-inch Hewlett-Packard 755C Design Jet color plotter.
"This grew out of a need to proof on something more representative of what our product would look like," says Digital Technology Systems Manager Bill Taylor. "We would do the regular four-part color keys, and it would look great. But generally speaking, if advertisers held that up next to a color page printed in the newspaper, they were severely disappointed."
The reel-stand construction, says Taylor, started with some 1/4-inch-by-2-inch metal strapping that the maintenance crew cut to size and welded together. "It's got a little foot on it and a piece of angle bar that comes up. We then took an old newsprint shaft out of a press we weren't using anymore and sat it into these two little 'V'-looking things they'd put on the stand.
"We've tied it into the printer," adds Taylor, "but it's almost a little stand-alone unit. The newsprint comes right off that roll, goes into the plotter, and it lasts forever. We bring up a roll that's maybe a foot in diameter, and we may not change it for three months."
Among the benefits:
- Printing on the butt rolls and avoiding color keys is saving the paper tens of thousands of dollars a year.
- The speed of printing on newsprint saves time for the production staff.
- Faster turnaround means sales staff can get proofs out more quickly to their customers, and ad spec layouts look more like the real thing. "We haven't convinced everybody that they should look at them," says Taylor. "Occasionally we'll pull out the old color key, but...by and large, we haven't had much complaining."
- It's reliable. Early concerns that newsprint dust would damage the machine were unfounded. Says Taylor, "We've been running flawlessly for at least four years."
Word is spreading. Taylor has had numerous inquiries from other newspapers. But a call to Hewlett-Packard about the Democrat's innovation had a spokesperson scratching her head. For now, newspapers who want newsprint proofs will have to emulate the Democrat's ingenuity.
Carol Memmott is a free-lance writer based in Chantilly, Va. E-mail, Cmemmott@aol.com; phone, (703) 802-6558; fax, (703) 631-4281.
Generating Gray-Bar Graphs in Portland
Like many newspapers, The Oregonian uses a three-color gray bar to control color-ink density on its news pages. What makes the Portland newspaper unique is a measurement and feedback system developed to monitor and improve the accuracy and consistency of gray bars, as well as support its pre-press calibration efforts.
Developed by The Oregonian's platemaking department, the feedback system consists of an X-Rite Inc. #418 densitometer, which downloads gray-bar readings into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet through a translation program called Software Wedge.
Each night following the press run, a member of the platemaking staff measures each gray bar on a "color-OK paper" and enters the data into Excel, where it is averaged and compared against past gray-bar performance, displayed graphically, printed and posted in The Oregonian's pre-press area.
Performance data are shared with pressroom staff during quarterly meetings. It takes about 10 minutes to read a series of gray bars, allowing the task to fit into the platemaking department's workflow.
The results have been dramatic. After one year of monitoring and feedback, the pressroom and plateroom have reduced average gray-bar density variance from 2.0 to .015.
The Oregonian's newfound ability to accurately and consistently set ink density affects every aspect of quality. Accurate gray bars mean an end to second-guessing by photographers, graphic artists, page designers and color separators. This means scanners, monitors and separation tables can be calibrated with a high level of accuracy; and The Oregonian can provide readers with accurate, vibrant and consistent color-even in the rainy Northwest.
