IFRA

Semi-commercial jobs which would normally require heatset printing are being produced in coldset at the Singapore Press Holding (SPH) Media Centre Plant on their manroland UNISET press using various types of newsprint. "We have done posters, leaflets, newsletters & magazines. Our customers include banks, retail outlets, government bodies, hospitals, associations, etc.," says Anthony Cheng, Executive Vice-President of Production at SPH. "The financial crisis actually brought about opportunities in that companies that are used to glossy heatset promotional materials are driven to look at alternatives because of budget constraints, and have begun to accept coldset newsprint stock (of higher grammage 70-95 gsm and wood-free or hybrid grade that are much brighter in shade) as an viable alternative, achieving more or less the same marketing objectives. This has brought about an unexpected but much welcome revenue stream to us,” he said. Cheng’s team has also broke new grounds by successfully printing on translucent newsprint with coldset printing process and normal coldset inks.

It is a known fact that the colour gamut of a coldset web offset press reduces over time, the reason mainly being the ink drying behavior and the properties of newsprint. Cold set inks set/dry mainly by absorption. During the drying process, the ink penetrates into the paper substrate and loses its gloss and some saturation. This results in a reduction in colour gamut when compared to a fresh printed sample. At the WAN-IFRA Research and Material Testing Centre, in Chennai, India (labindia@ifra.com), we tried to find out how much the colour gamut reduces over time and what is the effect of different paper and inks on the colour gamut reduction.

The Study with the title: "Reduction of colour gamut after printing in a coldset process" is available now (free of charge).

• Website  

The Colour Quality Self-Check is an online tool that is accessible free of charge to anybody. It allows you to check your colour print quality by printing the IFRA test element and input the measured values into an online form. The immediate results of an automatic evaluation will show you, were your quality stands. If you want IFRA to do the measurements, use the Color Quality IFRA Check model.

• www.ifra.com/qualitycheck

 "New Printing Plants" is the title of a new WAN-IFRA Special Report. It originates from a project that was managed by a German-Indian research group with researchers from the Technical University of Chemnitz and the University of Manipal. The IFRA South Asian Committee steered the project. Although the starting point was clearly focused on the Indian market, the guidelines and detailed checklists provided are, without any doubt, of high value for newspaper companies all over the world that are about to start projects to build new printing plants.

The 64-pages report is already online in English; German and French versions will folllow: free download for WAN/IFRA members from

• www.ifra.com/specialreports

Due to former technical limitations, the existing Ifra barcode (introduced in the early 1980s) mixes identification and information about the reel. At the same time the space for additional information is limited and cannot be exceeded with the existing barcode structure, despite the fact that there is a growing need for adding more information. A new system must serve the needs of up-to-date techniques, workflow demands and future technical requirements.

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