Task force braves new frontier in search of a color standard

For years, newspapers struggled to get color inside the lines. But just as registration headaches slowly fade, a group of about 80 industry experts has decided to raise the color bar.

The idea for the Newspaper Association of America's Newspaper Color Reproduction Task Force was born in the summer 1996, out of an urgent appeal from the National Newspaper Network (a division of the NAA) for help in addressing color quality at the national level.

A subsequent emergency strategy meeting of key members of the NAA's Digital Ad Task Force led to an invitation to key newspaper industry production personnel -- selected from over 40 newspapers, as well as from suppliers and the NAA -- to a kickoff meeting in September 1996. Those attending became core members of the Color Reproduction Task Force, setting as their mission the achievement of "consistent, accurate, high-quality reproduction throughout the newspaper industry."

The appeal -- and the urgency -- were based on the argument that newspapers receive a disproportionately low percentage of national ad revenue because agencies and advertisers perceive that maintaining consistent color quality across multiple newspaper markets is too difficult -- if not impossible, said Paul Lynch. (The director of quality assurance at the Chicago Tribune, Lynch was "drafted" by the NAA to head the task force.)

Consequently, if one newspaper fails to comply, all newspapers suffer. The challenge is to ensure that all newspapers can achieve that same level of quality.

The group's written charter, as well as its goals, were drafted by the NAA and a small group of people at the initial meeting.

"We wanted to go into the meeting with a viable plan to put on the table and get buy-in from the larger main body," said Lynch. "The group realized how daunting the project was, since it covered hundreds of newspapers nationwide who are at various levels of quality.

"The solutions would have to address quality uniformly as a short-term goal, but also lay the groundwork for long-term improvement and education."

For example, said Lynch, newspapers often neglect the quality of tear sheets they send advertisers. Instead of putting their best foot forward, newspapers often view tear sheets simply as a "proof of run," and send the first copies that come off the press.

However, by waiting until the presses are fully optimized, and selecting tear sheets that best represent the quality of the overall press run, newspapers are more likely to be successful at courting national accounts, he said, as they look closely at quality and "expect perfection."

Getting down to black-and-white
Because getting anything done by committee can be a Sisyphean task, the task force was broken into four workgroups: operations, implementation, standards and color management. Together, the groups complement one another in addressing workflow, technology, procedures, process control, consumables, quality optimization and management, said Lynch.

The smaller groups also addressed both the long- and short-term objectives of the task force, as well as the nature of reproducible color quality as both a technical and a managerial problem. Subsequently, each workgroup has determined its own mission and goals.

Since it was formed, the task force has varied in size and membership; its members all convene about three times a year. Workgroup chairs, like other members of the task force, have joined because of their particular expertise and previous work, and because the task force work complements projects they've undertaken on their home playing field.

For example, Tom Cusack, who is chair of the operations workgroup, is pre-press director at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. Bernie Szachara, who is chair of the color management workgroup, is director of imaging integration for the Gannett Co. Inc. of Arlington, Va.

"I entered the group in midstream," said Szachara. "Our newspapers were very interested in the task force as a whole, so I felt it was important to participate. Color management was still emerging as a new technology, and we wanted to understand and give feedback on where the industry was going with it. So I moved on to the color management team. I became chairman several months later."

Bill Reed, who chairs the implementation workgroup, is director of quality assurance and process improvement at Dow Jones & Co. Inc. of Princeton, N.J., which publishes the Wall Street Journal at more than a dozen printing plants across the country.

Reed, who works at the company's printing facility in Chicopee, Mass., believes participating in the group offers an opportunity to work with advertisers and ad agencies to obtain the best possible process color reproduction on newsprint -- matching both color and content in all newspapers.

"Advertisers need to be confident that all newspapers will print their ads similar to the proofs supplied," he said. "Producing consistent process color ads on newsprint on 20 presses located in 17 printing plants is a challenge. Anything we can develop to help this effort could be used by Dow Jones and the newspaper industry."

Walt Zawacki, the technical manager for color and printing research at Flint Ink Corp. of Ann Arbor, Mich., was previously involved with activities seeking standards under the American National Standard Institute's Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies (Ansi Cgats). Zawacki, a member of the Specifications for Non-Heat Advertising Printing (Snap) committee, heads the standards workgroup.

Lynch himself was already heavily involved with color quality issues covering both pre-press and press, and came to the task force with an understanding of the process. The Tribune quality department also does frequent quality training sessions with advertisers at both the local and national levels.

Setting the standards
"The standards group is focused on tightening the contributing causes of variability related to consumables, equipment and submitted advertising materials," said Lynch. Its task is to identify areas in which standards can help achieve consistent printing results, as well as establishing appropriate newspaper specifications to incorporate into industry standards.

Group members are also chartered with ensuring that current domestic and international activities concerning standards address the needs of newspapers. Primarily, however, they are reviewing existing Snap guidelines, which outline offset printing parameters, and, in their revised form, are expanding to include parameters for flexo and letterpress.

A different group is responsible for Snap -- which includes data on material preparation and consumable specifications, such as paper shade, ink color and color characterization -- and the task force standards group has provided the Snap group with feedback. Expanding the document, which should be completed by Feb. 1, will make it easier for advertisers who choose to adhere to the new standards to submit materials that complement newspapers' efforts to control processes.

The standards group is preparing an executive summary to the Snap document to explain its importance. The group also expects to update the official NAA Color Ink Guide in time for the SuperConference in January 2000, and to help resolve differences in equipment calibration throughout the industry by producing a standard newsprint shade reference white tile.

Although the task force generally agrees that many quality problems relate to print reproduction issues, Lynch said, it is still important to look at the overall process from input to output.

"Many printing complaints originate with poor quality material that is difficult if not impossible to match on the press," he said. "In actuality, advertisers are in desperate need of training on how to improve submitted materials for newspaper reproduction."

Many providers of ad material don't know how to deal with the required software or equipment settings to produce optimum color, he said. The operations workgroup fills that void, and works to identify and map operational tools, techniques and processes for achieving consistent quality by looking at important process variables within the production work flow, beginning with pre-press tasks.

The task force already has delivered a packet (distributed to people attending NEXPO '97 in New Orleans) containing standard procedures for pulling tear sheets to assure that advertisers receive a good-quality representation of the final printed product.

The document also presented information on how to determine what is acceptable first copy to be released, how to make the first salable copy call, and guidelines on how to set color balance on presses.

The group is still working on an updated Quality Reproduction Guide to help newspapers implement best practices. The revised guide will have training modules targeting individual groups in the production process -- such as designers and ad sales representatives -- as well as in-house processes, and a press operations checklist to assure proper press procedures.

Out of the laboratory
Color management is where the going gets really tough.

"Unlike operational issues," Lynch said, "which are basically refining known areas of the workflow, color management is plowing new technical ground in which every step is challenged."

That means challenging two Big Ifs: