INCQC and North American Color Quality Award

2008 INCQC Receipents at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on April 14, 2008.

Nearly 50% of the INCQC Inductees were first time members.

Congratulations to all the North American newspapers who participated in the International Newspaper Color Quality Club and those that received the NAA North America Color Quality Award.

2008 NAA North American Color Quality Award Winners

The Ann Arbor News
Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Globe and Mail, Boucherville
The Globe and Mail, Metro Edition
The Globe and Mail, Vancouver
The Grand Rapids Press
Journal Star
The Kansas City Star
La Presse
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
News Tribune
The Patriot News

Now, the question for many newspapers that participated in the 2008 INCQC evaluation is how to improve and learn from the data results in the INCQC site report. First, I'll suggest looking at the objective categories: the print targets and ROP newspaper evaluation. Those identify quantifiable quality process control issues that you can change. Most participants at INCQC level have workflow processes and control checks in place. The first step is to look at categories where points were deducted or where ISO standards were not met, and evaluate your process to meet the standards. The color gamut volume is affected by the shade (b*) of newsprint in North America. The higher b* value, the yellower the newsprint - thus affecting the volume of the color gamut. A systematic review of the process and workflow will yeald changes to improve technical and objective deductions - both target based and mechanical defects, such as plate lines and scumming.

Suggestions for improving the subjective INCQC ad and photo evaluation results. First understand the characteristics the judges were looking for; sharp images, neutral grey-balance (no color casts) with elements looking natural (not under or over saturated, or over-worked in Photoshop) and clean print quality. Looking at the top 10 newspaper samples, the characteristics that make the difference are: sharpness, both in toning as well as higher line count or stochastic screening, and use of GCR to reduce the oversaturation in the mid and shadow tones. There are many hybrid screening technologies today - so if you are still running under 110 lpi, now might be a good opportunity to test some of the new screening technologies and use of heavy GCR in your workflow. And keep in mind, also experiment with the amount of image sharpening -- balancing clean print reproduction without the affects of over sharpening.