Color to gleam on newpaper's pages

ABOVE: Gallup Independent Second Pressman Patrick Gonzales operates the newspapers new automatic registration system. Not only does the new system help produce a higher quality product that readers will see in the crispness of the photos, but it also saves about 12,000 newspapers per week from being thrown away. BELOW: The small colored dots found at the bottom right of every page help keep the alignment of the newspaper in check resulting in crisper, clearer photos. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Gaye Brown de Alvarez
Staff writer

GALLUP — The Independent has moved further into the 21st century with a new press, a new page-layout system, and now, a new color-registration process.

The paper does not print actual colors, like skin tone or sand and rocks. Instead the press combines magenta, cyan, yellow and black to make all the colors needed. And if those colors don’t align correctly, the photo will look blurry.

They’re not noticeable but on every page is a small series of eight spots. As the paper rolls through the press, a camera looks at the dots. Then the computer moves the cylinders and plates forward or backward on each of the four units on the press’s six towers.

The computer checks 48 places and small motors change positions of the machinery to put the cyan, magenta (red), yellow and black together on the page.

Publisher Robert Zollinger said the new registration process cost “a few hundred grand,” but he expects a three-year payback in newsprint. A roll or newsprint for the press costs about $700 per metric ton.

“On a typical run,” Zollinger said, “we would throw away 1,500-2,000 copies before we got the color in register.” He added that the registration was difficult because of the quantity of color in the paper. Tuesday, before the press run, the counter was placed back to zero and by the time 200 copies had run through, the registration was “acceptable.”
Hopefully, Zollinger said, he can reduce waste from 12 percent down to 4 percent. “If we can do that, I’ll be as happy as a lark.”

Mark Vincent, Independent pressroom foreman, said, “the whole idea is to cut our waste.” Vincent has been the press foreman for 22 years and has seen the printing process move from the old press to the new Goss web-offset press.
He explained the new registration process.

“The dots are actually .02 millimeter or 7/1000 or an inch square, he said. “There is a camera on each side of the web (the paper). The camera only sees black and white with two light sources. It searches for the dots and an encoder tells each camera where to find the reference point on the dots. Then it locks on the dots. The computer program knows the position of the dots and which dot is which color and knows the distance each dot needs to be from the other dot.”

The computer then tells one of the many small motors on the print towers to move the phasing gears or the belts to lengthen or shorten the paper movement and align the dots properly. The magenta dot is the controlling dot. The computer knows magenta never moves, so every other color on one side is moved to register with the magenta, he explained.

Another high-tech change to the press in the cut-off control. When each paper is cut from the roll, the cut-off control keeps the paper constantly printed in the area in the center of the page.

The new color registration process was installed about 10 days ago.

“There is a learning curve for us,” Vincent said. “And we have to learn the nuances of it.”

Zollinger said that newspapers like the Gallup Independent that are committed to quality, relentlessly pursue processes such as color registration.