For several weeks I have wanted to explain new technology that has been added here at the newspaper. The News-Banner staff members have been working hard to get our new website up and going and it is working great and according to the comments we have received, it has been well received.

With regards to the printed edition of the newspaper, we have been making strides in improving the appearance as well.

About a month ago the newspaper purchased a machine called an imagesetter. This machine is not new technology to the print industry, but it is new to our newspaper production department. To put it in simple terms, an imagesetter should allow this newspaper to have better alignment and control when printing color in the newspaper.

Before the addition of the imagesetter we would design and then print each page from a computer to a large laser printer. Then we would take each page into our darkroom and use a large camera to create a reproduction of the page to film format. The image on the film would then be transferred to an aluminum plate and put on our printing press.

The imagesetter deletes two of the above-mentioned steps. It produces the entire page images straight to film.

With the old way of producing the pages we would have problems aligning color separations due to stretching from either the laser printer or the large format camera. The new system produces each color page precise. To produce color images on a page, the printing industry uses a process called CMYK or cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K). Each page is separate and must align precisely to produce a good image.

As with any new system, it is going to take a little time to learn. You have probably noticed that some of the pictures in the newspaper have been either a little dark or too light. We have been fine-tuning our picture settings and the appearance of the pictures should get much, much better in the next few weeks.

Watch for steady improvements to both our online and printed versions of the newspaper. The News-Banner hopes to unveil a new online feature in the coming months that we feel the community is going to love.

-Jamie Gardner