I will continue with my last column of color reproduction improvements at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (see N&T, April 2001).

The original question, submitted by Kelly Cline, quality assurance manager at The Plain Dealer, was: How can we best formulate a plan to improve the consistency of our color reproduction quality at the Cleveland Plain Dealer?

This month, Cline presents his insights into improving the color reproduction quality.

In June 2000, The Plain Dealer began to investigate the use of color management technology as a means to further improve its color reproduction quality, since existing standards for handling and communicating color were no longer moving The Plain Dealer toward its quality improvement goals.

The Plain Dealer hired Reintech Inc. and Chromaticity Inc. Reintech would concentrate on our printing process, while Chromaticity would focus on improving our proofing.

In the pressroom, we verified that current printing process conditions were within original specifications or better. Once this was done, a profile target was run on-press, analyzed, and a file created that could be tested within our workflow. This allowed us to accurately proof an image and improve the process of preparing an image for the newspaper — optimized for The Plain Dealer’s specific printing conditions.

This did not mean that our color image quality and consistency would necessarily improve; it only meant that people could now predict how an image would reproduce in our newspaper. This ability to predict early in the process would become the real power that color management would bring to The Plain Dealer.

Now that we knew color management would work, we had to make a decision — how far do we take color management?

There were, of course, systems and workflow issues to consider. Working with Mike DiCosolo of Chromaticity, we focused on how and where the use of color management would have the greatest impact on improving quality, while utilizing existing technology at The Plain Dealer.

The following is a list of some of the most important steps taken to implement color management and the rationale behind the decision:

• Purchased Gretag Macbeth ProfileMaker software and spectrophotometer — allows The Plain Dealer to become self-sufficient in the administration and continuous improvement initiatives that involve color management.

• Added The Plain Dealer press profile to the CMYK setup on Macs that work with editorial color — provides a means to optimize an image, both view and output, for The Plain Dealer printing process and conditions.

• Purchased and profiled a Cannon BJ 8500 proofer to be used in our prepress imaging area — enables staff to quickly assess if a photo requires further enhancement and toning before image is placed on a page.

• Profiled all HP broadsheet plotters — provides full-page proofs used to review a variety of items.

• Implemented the use of the press profile and calibrations procedures on monitors deemed critical to color quality — provides operators with a calibrated view of an image optimized for our press conditions.

• Conducted profiling tests with Nikon D1 digital camera — compensates and neutralizes for variations in lighting.

• Created press profiles for commercial printers that handle outsourced advertising materials — enables images created by The Plain Dealer to be compensated correctly and optimized to a commercial printer’s process and conditions.

• Shared press profile with an advertising agency that creates our promotional materials — allows agency to work with image optimized for The Plain Dealer’s printing process.

These steps constitute the bulk of what The Plain Dealer had to do in order to color manage its workflow. While our work is far from done, we have made great improvements in our reproduction quality and consistency with the use of color management.

As I look back, there are two things that stand out in my mind about this project — color management is as much about communication and cooperation as it is about technology, for without everyone working together, we could have never come so far so fast.

The project makes everyone involved acutely aware of just how important calibrations are. Without calibration, there is no predictability. With no predictability, proofs don’t match final output, communication breaks down, poor decisions are likely to be made and quality will fall off.

With color management in place, proper documentation and people working together, we have a road map to get back to where we are today … a far better place than we were six or seven months ago.

Ray Reinertson has worked with press technology for over 30 years. He can be reached by phone or fax at 616.467.8025 or via e-mail at Rreino@aol.com.