Prepress Technology April 2001

Color management impacts The Plain Dealer

This month, we continue February’s column on color reproduction improvements at The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Q How we can best formulate a plan to improve the consistency of our color reproduction quality at the Cleveland Plain Dealer?

Kelly Cline
Quality Assurance Manager
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

A Mike DiCosola of Chromaticity presents his insights: To understand the impact that color management implementation brought to The Plain Dealer, it is important to know that they had no interest in the technology when starting out. The Plain Dealer was looking for a solution to their color reproduction problems. The method or technology that would achieve that goal was not truly important as long as there was a confidence in success at the end of the day.

A single word can sum up the key to achieving success at The Plain Dealer. That word is predictability. The ability to predict what will happen at every stage in the process provides us with an amazing capability. We empower people to make good decisions based on better information.

Kelly Cline, quality assurance manager and project leader at The Plain Dealer, summarized this concept best when he stated: "I refuse to believe that anyone comes to work with the intention to do a bad job. If we can give them the tools to make better decisions about what goes into the paper, then the paper in turn will look better each day."

This is the key to The Plain Dealer’s success. Without ever explaining how an International Color Consortium profile comes into existence or what it does, this is what matters. This is what you need to achieve in order to succeed. Sure, how we technically accomplished it is important, but understanding the true goal up front is crucial. To achieve marked improvements in color reproduction, you will not simply be implementing a technology, you may find yourself changing a culture.

Achieving predictability was based on two major concepts – controlling every variable in every process as much as possible, and never allowing inaccurate color to be displayed anywhere in the process. In almost every case, common sense and existing processes achieved the task of process control. And in almost every case, color management technology was the tool that enabled accurate color.

Starting in the pressroom, we ensured that the press was performing at its best and more importantly that the press could print consistently based on a gray-bar density measurement. From this point throughout the process, we worked backward. In attempting to print a valid profile target on-press, we were forced to examine every process that touched a digital image. We found and corrected numerous problems affecting consistency throughout the process. As we established documented consistency from the pressroom backward, we identified areas where accurate color proofing would help operators make better decisions.

Our first major step back in the process was into the imaging area. This group handles the task of scanning and color correcting most all images fed into the system. Here we improved monitor previewing of color in Photoshop through the use of ICC profiles. This almost eliminated the need to use the existing Scitex technology, as was previously the norm. We next installed a small-format inkjet printer for proofing loose color images. This enabled the imaging area to get accurate feedback of how an image would print in the paper. For the first time, they could predict how their color edits would truly affect an image prior to actually printing the image in the paper.

This same concept was then carried back to the large-format inkjet printers in use throughout editorial and advertising. Eventually, the color copier used by the photo desk in editorial was color-managed to better represent press printing. Finally, we moved on to the monitors and digital cameras in use by the photographers themselves. At every step of the way, the goal was to allow people to continue creating and editing color as before, but to simply give them a better measure of what the result would be far before ever setting ink to paper.

One of the most difficult areas to cover when implementing a system such as this is the cooperation that it requires. To succeed, you must be very honest about where your processes break down. As in most things, it is easier to point fingers than solve problems. Many problem areas in a production process occur where the lines are drawn between one departmental process and another. Solving those problems requires cooperation and a team commitment to success. This process will not be accomplished overnight and once begun requires an ongoing commitment from the top.

Through forcing consistency and enabling predictability, color management technology allowed The Plain Dealer’s people to make good decisions based on more accurate information. This is the key to the success experienced at The Plain Dealer and it is what color management can achieve if approached correctly.

Front Page | Archive