What was your first job in the newspaper business?

Imaging technician.

What do you like most about your job?

I enjoy the everyday challenge of a newspaper. Print quality is a top priority at the El Paso Times, along with color management. In order to accomplish these two goals, one must be on top of everything, from a simple raster image processing (RIP) calibration issue to a complex problem such as a software incompatibility or a color management and profiling situation. There is always something to do, fix, update, verify, or check. We work hard to give our customers top quality papers.

What do you like least?

I don’t like it when I can’t get the support I need in order to accomplish a certain goal.

What was your newspaper’s most recent purchase/installation?

The El Paso Times’ most recent purchase was the full Harris pagination system. For us, this was the system that made the most sense financially. Since we already had their AdPag product, the logical thing to do was complete the system.

What is the biggest challenge your newspaper is facing in production?

One of the many challenges the El Paso Times is facing is an increase in color, while maintaining high print quality and staying at the top of Gannett’s Optimum Quality grading. The El Paso Times is a full color management company that uses IntelliTune (from Agfa Corp.) to process 90 percent of the color and 100 percent for black and white.

Our records show that last period, we processed 3,640 color images, without counting those sections that have a hot folder process where images are automatically toned and put into a Quark document. In years past, it was unheard of to process more than 1,200 color images per month.

This in itself is a great challenge. In order to maintain consistency and quality, a very tight process is needed. We calibrate RIPs daily, check plate exposures before every shift, check lamp exposures once per week, verify monitors daily and print a press profile once every six months, etc.

I think the biggest challenge in the color management loop is to print and make good press profiles. A mediocre or poor profile will or can affect a good portion of the prepress setup, such as monitor calibration to match the newspaper using a graybar for ink setting. A good press profile, however, will be recognized immediately.

For example, when we are able to accomplish this, I don’t have to do any adjustments to the IntelliTune scripts. That in itself is a great thing. Monitor setups are easily matched to the print and RGB to CMYK conversions are within tolerance. If it was a bad run, it can actually turn into a nightmare very quickly. It’s hard to correct poor profiles even if you have Edit Profile by GregtagMacbeth, or any other editing software.

Since we create our own profiles, constant communication with imaging technicians is a must, as well as communication with those departments affected by it.

Meeting our customers’ expectations of having top print quality is of major importance to the El Paso Times. That forces us to stay on top of any new challenge that comes our way. We added Photoshop 7 to our color management loop in July.

What trend are you keeping your eye on?

The El Paso Times is looking at computer-to-plate. Our customers expect the best print quality. We feel that with a complete CTP solution we can meet their expectations and add management tools in production that enable us to improve and manage workflows better.