Prepress Editor

USA Today recently completed installation of 50 proofing systems from SeeColor Corp., and is using them at its production sites worldwide to proof color advertisements and editorial photos.

USA Today selected the SeeColor Computer To Proof software to drive DesignJet 1050C printers from Hewlett-Packard Co. because the system accurately duplicated the printed press proof standard at worldwide proofing sites, said SeeColor.

USA Today prints color proofs on an HP DesignJet 1050C. Photo courtesy of Hewlett-Packard

“SeeColor meets the requirements of proofing in our computer-to-plate environment, delivering the consistency demanded by a truly global remote proofing system,” said Ron Cobbs, prepress operations manager and digital proofing project manager for USA Today.

Rollout of the proofing project in the United States and Europe started in mid-April and was completed at the end of May. SeeColor systems were installed at 33 domestic print sites, in addition to six systems that were installed at the Rosslyn, Va., hub site.

International sites include London; Milan, Italy; Frankfurt, Germany; and Gosselies, Belgium. Installation at the last international site in Hong Kong is expected to be completed this month.

SeeColor began developing its proofing solution to meet the requirements of USA Today’s CTP project four years ago.

“When we originally began looking for a proofing solution that met our needs, there really wasn’t one on the market. Essentially the closest thing to our needs was the SeeColor product,” said Cobbs. “They were one of the few vendors that spent a considerable amount of time listening to what our needs were, and then developed the product around that.”

Regardless of where a proof is printed, the output is designed to look the same. USA Today previously printed every proof at the hub in Rosslyn, Va., and then shipped the proofs to each print site from there. The newspaper wanted to improve on the proofing process, but also wanted to “keep the traditional method of proofing — that every print site saw the same proof,” said Cobbs.

Each site is calibrated to print the same color and density on the DesignJet printers. The 1050C is recommended for newspaper proofing applications because of its speed and its pigmented black ink that has a visual density similar to the printing press ink.

“As far as the HP hardware, we’ve only had one printer blow a component, which HP replaced the next day,” said Cobbs. “The software runs close to flawlessly.”

USA Today proofs are made with pre-screened, pre-separated bitmap data that is generated and transmitted from the Rosslyn, Va., hub site. At each print site, Computer To Proof software recombines bitmap files generated by the raster image processor, and prints the original underlying halftones at 85, 100 or 110 lines per inch, on 70-pound stock that meets the visual specifications for newsprint, explained Cobbs.

During installation, Computer To Proof is set to match the color, density and ink hues on press. The software has hue controls that allow the cyan and magenta inks of the printer to be matched with the cyan and magenta inks of the press.

Once the proof is set to match the press, the DesignJet printers are kept consistent and repeatable using X-Rite densitometers and SeeColor’s calibration and linearization software called ColorLoop.

A test page is sent out and printed at each print site. The test is then sent back to the Quality Services department, which is responsible for the reproduction quality of USA Today. Quality Services analyzes the test page, takes spectrophotometer and density readings, and puts the data into a database system that tracks the information to determine if a unit is out of calibration.

This process sets each printer to the correct densities and linearizes the printers, so that the same color setup will print exactly the same on each printer.

Computer To Proof can drive the DesignJets in two print modes — fast and faster. In Fast mode, a newspaper broadsheet page can be printed in approximately two and a half minutes. Print time is about one minute in the Fastest mode, depending on CPU speed.

The Computer To Proof software at USA Today is installed on SeeColor’s Rosette RIP, which can proof PostScript, PDF, EPSF or TIFF file formats. This configuration was designed to support halftone proofing for either a PostScript or a RIP Once, Output Many workflow.s

SeeColor

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