Beechmont Press — The Ink Inquisition

What printing gremlin lurked within the production line? Plant Manager Steve Stahl summarizes the problem: "We got a lot of grief over dot gain—we couldn't get it any better than 30 percent, so we couldn't match color proofs."

When an ink vendor, who was courting the printer's business, claimed that his product could decrease that dot gain dramatically, Beechmont's production team smiled, then asked the vendor to prove it. A preliminary test indicated that inks from Superior Printing Ink could deliver the necessary dot-gain reduction. Excited, Beechmont allocated some press time for a formal test.