Canadian newspaper sees $213,000 in ink savings since using ProImage

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Canadian newspaper Winnipeg Free Press recently added ProImage's OnColor ECO Ink Optimization Software to reduce ink consumption and ink cost on its press, while improving print quality.

The Winnipeg Free Press is the second largest city newspaper in Canada and prints more than 85,000 daily newspapers and multiple commercial jobs. The paper's main objective was to save on ink. With the installation of ECO, the staff saw a 33 percent reduction of ink in 2017 compared to 2016. This relates to annual savings of over $213,000; in 2016 the paper spent $610,000 on ink, compared to $397,000 in 2017.

Black ink went up by $2,500 but since black ink is more cost effective, the impact was minimal. The newspaper was able to gauge its ink savings by monitoring consumables from 2016 versus 2017 and accounting for page count averages. The staff saw ink savings of 110,733 pounds and only a small increase of black ink by 3,238 pounds. With ProImage/AGFA's new loyalty program, production costs were effectively reduced by $.55 per square foot.

ProImage says OnColor ECO partially replaces cyan, magenta and yellow colors in an image with black without compromising sharpness or quality. The conversion process reduces the overall ink volume required for printing. Cost reduction is achieved by both reducing the volume of the expensive color inks and replacing them with less expensive black ink, thus reducing the overall volume of inks used.

Winnipeg Free Press already used ProImage NewsWay Workflow Software when ECO was installed and OnColor ECO integrates seamlessly with it. It appears as a device in the NewsWay Production Workflow. As it receives files from Asura, it hands them off to the RIPs after processing.

When asked about the ease of use, Christine Fehler, vice president of operation for the Winnipeg Free Press, said "it works like other NewsWay devices in which it can be applied or bypassed by a single mouse click right within the browser."

She said one of the major benefits of ECO for the paper is the "good balance of ink savings and print quality the default settings provide." She also said the production "required no adjustments."

Besides the tremendous ink savings reported, the print quality also improved. The paper reports cleaner press runs and less clogging, and results were more accurate than any other solution they evaluated.

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