It’s good that picture quality still gets noticed – and not just in the omission – with one newspaper printer reporting a message of thanks for “better-looking” photos.

Reports from ECO3 unit ProImage not only tell the story, but also that of a daily newspaper which got around a ransomware hacking, thanks to the cloud software provider.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the local print and digital daily Gazette – which is owned by staff – has just upgraded to the new version 6 of the OnColor image toning software, not just easing the task of processing about 3,500 images a week, but making a noticeable difference in quality. The software colour corrects CMYK images, adjusts image resolution and converts colour images to black and white as needed.

IT manager Rob Peacock talks of “excellent, consistent print quality” with the toned images offering greater consistency and speed compared to manual toning, processing more than 40,000 images a month for various newspapers. “It’s a no-brainer for us as it saves valuable time and provides consistent image quality.”

Highlights include tonal gradation, cast removal, skin tone correction, USM sharpening, very fine detail and adaptive contrast enhancement, as well as conversions and file sizing.

The benefits of cloud delivery were learned the hard way at a paper in Kingsport, Tennessee, one weekend a couple of years ago when SAN infrastructure there was infected by Faust ransomware – including NewsWayX workflow servers – leaving them no way to output pages internally. Thanks to ProImage support, a cloud instance to process the pages via FTP meant they were still able to deliver a printed product to customers on Monday morning.

Now the Kingsport Times-News has decided to move to ProImage’s AWS based redundant cloud workflow permanently.