US Ink RealColor Users in Color Quality Club

By: E&P Staff Five of the seven U.S. members of the 2006-2008 International Newspaper Color Quality Club use RealColor, from US Ink, Carlstadt, N.J.

The seven are among 50 newspapers chosen every two years to be members of the club.

The five RealColor users are The Boston Globe, Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y., News-Leader, Springfield, Mo., The New York Times, and The Times Herald, Norristown, Pa. (a first-time member).

Club officials selected this year's class from a field of 181 newspapers from 38 countries that participated in the print-quality competition organized by Ifra, the Newspaper Association of America and the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association.

Newspapers entered the competition to benchmark their printing and reproduction quality on an international scale. In addition to submitting sample daily production copies, they were required to print two test targets, an editorial image and a digital ad. In a three-stage process, the test targets were measured against a standard color gamut, the print quality of the newspaper was evaluated, and the test prints were judged by a 14-member international jury.

Titles that earned membership will be honored at a ceremony during IfraExpo, Oct. 9-12 in Amsterdam.

RealColor includes prepress and press audits and operations analyses leading to recommendations for optimizing color printing. It offers engineering support, customized training, and product choices, with Web-site access to technical data and US Ink's Press Doctor program to help solve pressroom problems.