Vendors flooded the NEXPO floor with computer-to-plate solutions, including a straight-to-ultraviolet-plate system and a consortium led by Pitman Co. of Totowa, N.J., that announced the largest-ever newspaper sale of CTP equipment.

The Pitman deal brought together CrescentNews platesetters from Barco Graphics Inc. of Vandalia, Ohio; Polaris platesetters and Intellinet Newsflow software from Agfa Corp. of Ridgefield Park, N.J.; and personal computer and network hardware from Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala., to create a complete CTP system for 33 USA Today remote-printing sites in the United States. Three foreign sites get film-imaging devices.

Ken Kirkhart, USA Today vice president of operations, said that at 100 plates per hour, he expects CTP to bring improved deadlines and quality, cost efficiencies and flexibility.

The multivendor approach presents a model for future CTP systems, said William A. Ceperich, Pitman vice president of national accounts and packaging. "Nobody's going to do it alone."

Sonoran Scanners Inc. of Tucson announced its CactusSetter UV CTP exposure system, priced around $300,000 and available in October. One of the first newspaper CTP systems based on common UV plates that use existing plate processors, chemistry and other gear, the CactusSetter produces 250 plates or 125 broadsheet spreads per hour. Among other CTP highlights:

• Kodak's Anitec Newspaper Co. of Holyoke, Mass., previewed a low-cost thermal-laser direct-to-plate system available soon. Anitec spokesmen said a single plate-processing line could cost as little as $150,000, produce up to 80 broadsheet plates per hour using Kodak metal plates, and leave a low-pH waste disposable in sewer systems.
• Autologic Information International of Thousand Oaks, Calif., displayed the APS 3850 CTP processor, boasting 240 broadsheet plates or 150 broadsheet spreads per hour.
• K&F Printing Systems International of Granger, Ind., introduced the Laser Express 240, producing 240 plates per hour.

At Tuesday's digital-photography workshop, Chris Ritter, an Associated Press phototechnology specialist, outlined digital issues and misconceptions, then suggested ways to overcome them. Among his points:

• Offer training. Include printed materials such as The Digital Photojournalist's Guide, 4th Edition (www.robgalbraith.com), and don't forget the camera's manual (some 95 percent of photographers say they don't read them). Provide on-site training and encourage photographers to talk with off-site users.
• Build in transition time.
• Account for different skill levels, and know when to push forward. "You have to take film away from [some people] and push them out the door," Ritter said.
• Remember that "digital is not that forgiving" and will not overcome bad habits. Lighting and exposure are critical; storage capacity is limited; shooters can't simply fire off multiple exposure settings.
• Most cropping must be done when the shot is taken. Don't expect software to correct all image deficiencies.

The trade-off: Digital photography gives shooters more time in the field. Alan English, assistant managing editor for photography at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., finds that time once spent processing film and mixing chemicals now goes to planning, and to attempting "the perfect shot."

Photographers carry digital kits-laptops, cell phones, cameras, lenses and lights. The kits, $33,000 each in 1997, might cost only $20,000 now, English said. Removing darkroom chemistry helped provide a five-year return-on-investment.

Several NEXPO speakers identified one component as the most critical to technology success: people.

"If you don't understand this part, nothing works," Derrick K. Jones, a former Atlanta Journal and Constitution staffer and now a 3Com network consultant, told attendees at one of three sessions on demystifying networks.

Installing, upgrading and operating networks succeeds only if key management and people questions are decided well before any equipment change occurs.

"Are you ready for a network?" asked Tom Roche, group marketing manager for GTE Communications Corp. of Irving, Texas, which supports the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's setup. "Ready for huge cultural change? Do you have management support? Are you ready to educate your staff and your end users? To spend the capital required? If you answered yes, then you're ready for a network."

Another key decision: Should primary support be in-house or outsourced?

"[A network] can include dial-up access, T1s, dedicated Internet, LAN, 10baseT wiring, Apple Talk, host access, fiber nodes, networked PC s and Macs," Roche said. "If you have a network in place today, it will likely be very different in two years."

Ed Baer, director of computer services for the Journal and Constitution, said that his company has "close to 2,000 people on e-mail, several different production plants and numerous satellite offices," all monitored by GTE in Texas.

And while network speed has improved dramatically, so has maintenance difficulty.

Other issues managers must master, according to Roche:

• "Can you afford your network to be down for any length of time, and how quickly can you get it back up? If you have multiple sites, do you have the capability for remote analysis and repair?"
• While no one-vendor network exists, "the more vendors you add to your network, the more complex it becomes."
• If you require more than one network, "keep the number minimal."
• Decide how much warning to build in. "If you get information about a component starting to go wrong, it's better than learning about it after the system crashes."

Security presents other thorny challenges. Staffers in Atlanta successfully thwarted 38 viruses in March, 51 in April and 67 in May, reported Mike Goss, Journal and Constitution manager of security administration. Hacking incidents cost companies at least $800 million in damages last year, he noted.

Inappropriate e-mail and software piracy by staff members also expose companies to legal liability and heavy fines, Goss noted.

These challenges demand implementation of effective computer-usage policies. At the Atlanta papers, agreeing to comply with such policies is, like the mandatory drug test, a prerequisite to employment.

As computer-to-plate printing draws newspaper operations into the all-digital world and scattered printing operations come together in central plants, keeping track of advertising text, graphics, logos and specs takes on additional complexity—and sends publishers in search of ad-tracking programs.

"There is definitely more interest," reports Chris Hodges, managing director of MidSystem Technology Ltd. of Aylesbury in the United Kingdom.

MidSystem's "very configurable" relational-database software underlies ad-tracking programs for several companies, among them AdTrak and DataFlow from Cascade Systems Inc. in Acton, Mass., and PowerLink and Metropolis from Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill.

MidSystem sells Titan, running on a Unix platform and serving the needs of papers with 40-to-50 users or more, and Neptune, a Windows NT ad-monitoring system that also handles editorial content and electronic files for Internet sites.

Among offerings from other vendors: Ad Manager SQL and APSCOM from Autologic Information International in Thousand Oaks, Calif., work with a variety of ad-design systems under Windows NT. Advanced Publishing Technology in Burbank, Calif., has added ad-tracking to its Windows-based ACT Advertising system. Cenosis of Laval, Quebec, Canada, has introduced CenoPub. CNI Corp. of Newton, Mass., showed Display Ad Tracker, a system that works on a Windows NT and SQL database. Managing Editor Inc. of Jenkintown, Pa., debuted Roundhouse, based on a Windows NT and SQL server database that works with Macintosh and Windows clients. ProductionManagerPro from Baseview Products Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich., tracks ads entered with Baseview's Ad Manager Pro or, the company says, "with a little extra programming, another system." RADAR Ad Tracking System from Graphic Enterprises Inc. in North Canton, Ohio, manages and tracks ads from development to routing and storage. SCS/Track from Software Consulting Services in Nazareth, Pa., places location, date and time stamps on every job action and provides extensive bar-code scanning, and runs in Windows, Macintosh and Unix environments.

TechNews Volume 5, Number 4: July/August 1999

Return to July/August Home Page