War Stories: Press Checks Across America

The dashboard clock glowed 1:17 a.m. Driving snow covered the expressway so completely that only the tracks of the car ahead identified the road. A truck blasted past, and I dropped in behind, hoping he knew the road better than I. My rental car’s wipers and defroster were overwhelmed—I was craning to see through a three-inch diameter clear spot in the glass. Should I pull off? No, I’d miss my press check. Thirty miles to go.

A “press check” is when you fly to the catalog printing plant, examine the first press sheets off the press, and have the press crew make whatever changes are needed to correct the color.

And the more you think about it, the more puzzling it is that press checks are necessary at all. Aren’t our images scientifically scanned into well-defined color spaces? Don’t we use hugely expensive proofing devices to output proofs with the same dots and ink colors the press will use? Don’t our printers calibrate their inks and presses to the same Specifications for Web Offset Publications (SWOP) standards as our proofing devices? And don’t the color bars atop each proof let the printer confirm that he’s running the same densities as our proofs? With all this science and standardization, why are press checks even necessary?

The answers, sadly, are many:

• Inline problems: Ink density can only be adjusted in vertical strips on the press sheet, and colors higher on the page can adversely affect colors lower on the page.

• Show-through: What’s printed on the back of a cheaper papr sheet will affect colors on the front of the sheet.

• Variations in ink color: Like everything else, inks vary in quality, with cheaper inks deviating more from established standards.

• Paper color: Papers are generally blue, yellow or gray, and those colors will have a substantial impact on the colors you see on the final printed page.

All these factors, plus many more, will cause variations between what you see on your proofs and what comes out of the press. Hence the need for press checks.

I pointed at a black shirt on the press sheet. “This shirt should be tan.”

The pressman looked at the Kodak proof: The shirt was tan. He looked at his press sheet: The shirt was definitely black.

“Needs yellow,” he said.

At the distant end of the press, a crew was stacking piles of folded press sheets onto pallets. “You’re saving already?” I asked. The pressman nodded. “You’ll need to throw all those away,” I said.

The pressman looked gloomy.

“If you ordered this black shirt, and received this tan one, would you be happy?” I asked.

He pondered a moment, then walked to the far end of the press, and gave an order. The crew began tossing thousands of catalogs into the waste bin.

Accurate color is important to you as a cataloger for two reasons: sales and returns.

Bad color will hurt your SALES, because with modern catalog printing, an inaccurate page will almost always be an ugly page. Why? Because the four inks used in modern web printing are intrinsically ugly. Magenta isn’t red—it’s a dirty pink, too much of which turns everything pale pink. And cyan isn’t blue—it’s a nasty greenish-blue, too much of which turns everything muddy. The third ink color is yellow, too much of which makes people look jaundiced, food look rancid, and reds look orange. And the fourth color is black, too much of which turns the page gray, and too little of which makes the page weak. People won’t buy from ugly pages.

And bad color will hurt you with RETURNS. If a customer orders a hat that looks orange in your catalog, but receives a hat that is actually red, that customer will be unhappy, will probably return the product, and will certainly have less confidence in buying from you again in the future.

RING, RING. “We’re ready for you,” said the pressman on the phone. I was being summoned for my next press check. My clock radio said 2:32 a.m. “I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” I replied.

Hang up, jump out of my hotel bed, pull on my clothes, three minutes have passed. Grab my brief case, check my loupe, out the door, hurry to my rental car, five minutes have passed.

The hotel is a mile from the plant through inky farmland. But I’ve practiced the route in daylight, I just need to hit the freeway by my hotel, take the first exit, drive one mile north, and I’m there. So I exit my hotel, hit the on-ramp, there’s the first exit just ahead, but it’s filled with flashing yellow lights, road crew trucks—THEY’VE BLOCKED MY EXIT! The press crew has probably already begun saving, all my meat shots are probably green, 10 minutes have now passed. I’m late.

I roar past the blocked exit, the next exit can’t be far, the last lights of the tiny town vanish behind, the freeway turns sharply right, right again, now sharply left, where’s north, I’m confused, WHERE’S THE NEXT EXIT? Fourteen minutes have passed.

At last there’s the exit, I take it, immediately make a sharp right, then left, now right, right again: No more stop lights, no more freeway either, a sudden T in the road. I’m totally lost. I stop at a convenience store, the clerk has never heard of a printing plant in this area; 18 minutes have passed. I stop at a hotel, the night clerk hasn’t heard of the plant either, but directs me vaguely to the right; 22 minutes have passed.

I’m rushing past endless stop lights, surely that turn ahead seems slightly familiar. I turn, surely this is the street heading north. I drive the last mile in 50 seconds, roar into the plant; 26 minutes have now passed. I race to the press room, phone in, the pressman answers, “Where’ve you been, we’re saving already!”

Nowadays, many catalog printers are running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so the chance that your first press check will occur at midnight is about as good as the chance it will be at noon.

But if your catalog run is long enough to be profitable, and if you’re mailing more than once with several versions, and if your page count is high enough to be profitable, then you’ll almost certainly be doing three to six press checks, spaced four to eight hours apart, and you’re GUARANTEED to be doing some night driving through unfamiliar territory.

Some survival tips:

1. Get a road map. If local stores don’t have any—presses are often located in farm areas—get one from the plant.

2. Drive from your hotel to the plant at least once in daylight to learn the way.

3. Don’t count on locals to guide you when you’re lost. Locals often know very little about the area where they work, and give vague and incomplete directions.

4. If driving conditions are hazardous, consider simply staying at the plant between checks, rather than going back to the hotel.

“This model’s hair should be red,” I said. “Would a touch of magenta help?”

“OK,” said the pressman. He flicked on the red switch, found the proper key, and leaned on it way too long and way too hard, it seemed to me—but hey, I’m not a pressman.

I study the fresh press sheet he brings back: the model’s hair is now flaming red, along with her eyes, her skin, her yellow dress, the sky. The pressman seems pleased.

“Way too much red, isn’t it?” I said. “You need to come back down on magenta.”

“You got it,” said the pressman, as he leaned about five times too long on the minus red key. In the next press sheet, the model’s red hair was now green, along with her eyes, her skin, her dress, the sky. Again the pressman looked pleased.

“Have you been a pressman long?” I asked.

“About two weeks, why?” replied the pressman.

Many problems you’ll face press-side derive from one basic cause: Most printers produce far more magazines each year than catalogs. Low cost is much more important to most magazines than accurate color, so your press crew’s thoughts will probably be dialed into magazine-world ideas as they begin your catalog job:

1. They won’t want you to start your press check until they’ve begun saving, so they can bring up the sheet to commercially acceptable color as fast as possible, to minimize paper and press costs.

2. They will be generally unaware of the concept that your product images are far more important than your non-color photos, type colors, or screen tint colors, and that they should optimize color on your products first.

3. They will run very low ink densities, creating a pale, weak page (this conserves expensive ink).

To counteract these tendencies and get the best possible look for your catalog, you should do the following:

1. Before the press run begins, send a document to the printer that explains what is and is not important on your pages. Explain clearly that you want them to match the color of your PRODUCTS first, and only then to worry secondarily about optimizing your supporting images, screen tint boxes, colored type, etc.

2. Make it clear that you want to be called to your press check well BEFORE they start saving.

3. Begin each press check by quickly reviewing all sides of all sheets for grossly unacceptable color (like the black shirt described earlier). Immediately point out any fatal color problems. If catalogs are already being saved with the fatal color problem, ask the crew to discard those catalogs. Rather than discarding them, they may put them aside marked for use as bindery waste. This is an acceptable alternative to simply trashing the books.

4. If the page looks pale, weak, or lacks oomph, ask about “adding three color” or “adding four color.” This means adding more ink overall, with or without black.

WHOOOP! WHOOOP! WHOOOP! As soon as the alarm sounded, workers came running from all sides. Untrimmed press sheets were pouring from the folding machine, and the crew was yanking reams of catalogs from the machine on all sides, throwing catalogs blindly behind them onto the floor. Abruptly, the press stopped. Everyone looked disappointed.

“Folder jam,” said the pressman.

“How long to fix it?”

He shrugged. “Hour?”

In the good old days, when presses were less automated, press breakdowns could be quite dramatic. With a web break, for example, high speed jets of paper would suddenly erupt into the sky, then jam in the press rollers, bringing the press to a screeching halt, while smoke and flames poured from the dryer as the crew struggled to open the dryer doors.

But nowadays, web-break detectors can stop the press on a dime. Plus, automatic dryer door openers have eliminated much of the drama.

Even so, breakdowns are still common, and you must be prepared to wait them out. In my experience, breakdowns generally can be repaired quite quickly—30 to 90 minutes is typical. But longer down times will happen, and your travel plans must be flexible enough to accommodate them.

And fortunately, sometimes everything goes just right.

Bleary-eyed, I walk press-side to the color viewing booth. In front of me I see four absolutely beautiful press sheets. I compare them with the color proofs—perfect. I get out my loupe, check registration, perfect again. I smile—the lateness, the cold, the darkness all forgotten. The catalog’s products all look great, the client will sell lots and lots of everything, with few returns. “No moves, hand me a pen. These sheets are ready to run.”

Susan J. McIntyre is president of McIntyre Direct, a catalog agency and consulting firm in Portland, OR. She can be reached at (503) 286-1400.