Old-fashioned quality makes a current topic

ORLANDO, Fla. -- In the old days of newspapers, printing was a man's world, and Monday morning workshop at NEXPO '98, "The Cornerstone of Newspapers -- Quality Printing" lived up to that old saw, through no fault of the Newspaper Association of America.

Gayle Champagne, a vice president of the National Newspaper Network, was ill, so Eric Wolferman, senior vice president for technology of NAA filled in with a few facts detailing the importance of color reproduction.

Nothing earth-shattering, just a reiteration of why national advertisers want-prefer-demand consistent color from newspapers, no matter where in the country those national ads are printed. That this is a problem is certainly yesterday's news; that help is on the way with Apple Computer's ColorSync 2 and improved device color profiles is also not a new development.

In fact, little that was new was offered up to the more that 200 folks who attended. But what was proffered by the five other speakers was good, solid -- if a bit stolid -- information, which would at least put those that followed up on this advice on the right track.

Professor Robert Hacker, about to retire from the School of Printing and Management Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., was the old hand who had seen it all.

"Producing a quality is fundamentally controlling a manufacturing system," he opined. From his early days etching zinc plates (for newbies, these aren't plates you eat from) and no offset presses being used by major dailies to today's dealing with the proper setting for unsharp masking in Adobe's Photoshop, Hacker brought a 36-year perspective to the panel. A key piece of advice from him was the necessity to "teach old dogs new tricks," which boils down to taking advantage of the "legacy" backshop personnel, and to figure out a linear workflow that concentrates on one thing at a time.

Ken Kirkhart, the vice president for production at USA TODAY hashed over the importance of good people, the proper standards and procedures, and included a truism that usually gets a wince out of the penny-pinching publishers: "If you don't spend the money, you won't get the quality."

The well-received Karl Kuntz, managing editor for graphics at the COLUMBUS (Ohio) DISPATCH, had some down-to-earth advice for the attendees about the supreme importance of training, standards and working closely with the backshop to get the color page of today -- at least the color pages produced by the COLUMBUS DISPATCH of today.

In the most copiously illustrated talk of the panel, Kuntz showed many examples of color pages and photographs with different lighting conditions that were high quality in tonal range and detail. By 1999's NEXPO, he said, the entire photo department would have completely converted to digital images -- no more film. A lot of one-on-one training of photographers in Photoshop, good documentation of all procedures and an emphasis of quality aided in getting the DISPATCH to its present position in color use and expertise.

Paul Lynch, manager of quality and technical training for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE gave a slick speech with the usual presentation slides of his main points that asked and answered the question "How can the NAA Color Task Force help you improve quality?" National advertisers want uniform quality from tear sheets, and its no shock that the NAA Task Force will go the extra mile to keep the big advertisers, if not happy, at least advertising in newspapers. With so many ads coming in from outside, the newspaper has actually lost some of the control the backshop had in the old hot type days.

Lynch didn't mention this outsourcing peril in so many words, but did emphasize that, "the customer should not be held accountable" for ads prepared incorrectly which didn't reproduce right, although legally, the customer is in nearly all cases responsible for following those specifications. "Even when you win a particular battle with a client and avoid a credit charge, you lose the war when they don't return for business."

H. William Moore, director of operations at the PLAIN DEALER of Cleveland, concentrated his remarks on that paper's international award-winning color reproduction. Putting a new-in-1994 press facility with four Goss Colorliner presses to the test by being accepted in the IFRA Color Quality Club was a singular honor, since the PLAIN DEALER was the only U.S. paper in the 26 that, after a rigorous judging of its output, gained entrance to the club in 1996-98.

-- George Powell