Prepress
Kodaks reliability serving daily newspapers
Wednesday 29. October 2008 - The installation of four KODAK TRENDSETTER NEWS 200 Thermal Platesetters, has increased productivity and quality at the Il Messaggero print facility
Founded in 1878 under the management of Luigi Cesana, and today the fourth most popular newspaper in the country, Il Messaggero is Romes daily newspaper. The low launch price, just five cents, allowed the paper to be embraced by the people, reaching a circulation of 35,000 in just two years. One interesting historic detail relates to news gathering: the method adopted in those years was to pay the public half a lira for providing the editorial office of Il Messaggero with city news.
Since the paper was founded, various groups have owned it. In 1996, it was bought by Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone who, in 1999, set up the Caltagirone Editorial Group which, as well as Il Messaggero, now owns the dailies Il Mattino di Napoli, Il Gazzettino di Venezia, Nuovo Quotidiano di Puglia, Leggo and Corriere Adriatico. With a make-up of 60 pages, plus two weekly supplements, the Roman daily now has a circulation of about 320,000. Il Messaggero is published as a national edition as well as 12 local editions (eight in Lazio alone) to satisfy a readership mostly concentrated in the Central Italian regions: Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Umbria and Marche.
A new way of handling prepress for daily newspapers
Il Messaggero has its own in-house print facility and, when updating the systems, the KODAK TRENDSETTER NEWS 200 Thermal Platesetters were chosen. In February 2008, four CTP devices complete with KODAK PRINERGY EVO TDL were installed, as well as KODAK MERCURY PH-D Plate Processor and NELA PL-T plate loaders.
This choice was based on experience gained three years ago at Il Mattino, which is part of the same publishing group. In that installation, the technical management were able to verify for themselves the quality of the Kodak thermal systems and how easy they are to use. Initially, the Naples newspaper installed two TRENDSETTER NEWS 200 Platesetters, and a third has now been added, used as a back-up and in rotation to replace one of the two main CTPs. This unique and unusual choice in the newspaper printing world was made possible thanks to the outstanding simplicity and flexibility of the KODAK Platesetters.
Based on the positive experience at the Il Mattino print facility, Il Messaggero also replaced its CTPs with four TRENDSETTER NEWS 200 units. They were all supplied complete with NELA PL-T loaders (the first such installation in Italy), which makes it possible to load 600 single plates, removing and discarding the slip sheets, and a KODAK MERCURY PH-D Plate Processor. Kodak adapted the NELA plate bending system in order to match it to the specifications of the TRENDSETTER NEWS device.
The NELA PL-T plate loader, designed and manufactured by Brüder Neumeister GMBH, enables the KODAK TRENDSETTER NEWS Thermal Platesetters to operate continuously and without the need for the operator to be present.
A gradual but speedy installation
in just two weeks
Installation was in two stages: first, two devices were installed, and they had to coexist with two of the four CTPs that were already being used. “This was a crucial part of the installation, because not only was it important to maintain production without interruption but, above all, it was crucial to ensure consistency of the resulting output”, comments Daniele Cerretelli from TWS, Kodak agent for the newspaper sector, who managed the sale of the system and coordinated the Kodak technicians work. “Thus the file structure needed to be changed, modifying the correction curves for consistent delivery from all CTPs, in order to have the same output results”.
In the second stage, the other two CTPs were replaced and colour control was set up for the entire system. The Kodak service team guaranteed a gradual transition without interrupting production, by making all the changes required and completing the installation in just two weeks.
Fully automatic solutions
TRENDSETTER NEWS 200 Platesetters guarantee total consistency for colour reproduction. These CTPs have a twin laser imaging head, which enables actual productivity of 220 plates an hour and a resolution of 1200 dpi to be achieved.
Just one person manages the entire system because it is monitored from a single operator station. Together with the NELA PL-T plate loading system and the KODAK Plate Processor, the system offers reliable performance levels with a high level of automation, until dispatch to press, when the plates are sorted on the basis of the various editions. Each stacker is dedicated to a specific edition and the unit automatically ensures that the last plates to go to press are the city edition plates.
The KODAK Solutions guarantee total compatibility with newspaper workflows. In particular, the PRINERGY EVO TIFF DOWNLOADER, installed at Il Messaggero, accepts standard TIFF files and connects to most systems used by other producers. This RIP software controls prepress and production of the plates, guaranteeing exceptional performance levels and very high quality.
The benefits appreciated by Il Messaggero also encompass environmental aspects: with the new MERCURY X series processing technology, less chemicals are required and the hot air which was discharged to atmosphere by previous systems is now reused by the device.