Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Calendar Printing at NSO Press

I am priviliged to have been asked by Mike Abell, the owner of NSO Press, to be included in the promotional calendar that he does every year and this year it is helping to benefit Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado.  I spent the last couple of evenings at the press helping to oversee the printing of the calendar and it has been a fascinating experience.  Randy, at the right of the picture above, is the highly talented pressman running the press.  He has been very patient with me because I have the tendency to ask a lot of questions about how things work, I think that you have to understand how things work to know what you can do with them.  The press is a very large and complicated piece of machinery that Randy makes look easy to operate.  The press extends about 50 feet off to the left of the picture, just to give you an idea how big it is.

The process has moments of intensity surrounded by long periods of boredom.  The intense part is when the first prints come off and we all look at the color to make sure it is what is expected and make adjustments as necessary.  I am still developing my color eye and I was happy to be learning from Mike and Randy who have many years of experience.  Each of the four colors can be adjusted in very small swaths along the page, the nuance is figuring out which color to adjust in which part of the page.  The process is somewhat automated, but it does take skill and experience to know how to tweak things.  Once everything was set it would take about 40 minutes to print the 3000 or so copies.  Then Randy would clean the press, change the plates and the process would start over again.

We decided that there were only 6 or so critical pages that we wanted to check, the rest we left in Randy’s very able hands to work on into the night.  With 16 pages in the calendar and roughly an hour a page, it takes quite a while to print.  Then all of the 48,000 pages go through the press again to have gloss applied to the pictures and it is off to the bindery for finishing.

It has been a fascinating process to learn and I am so thankful to Mike to have included me.  Look for the calendars in the store section sometime after Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Central Utah

I had the wonderful opportunity to drive from Sacramento to Denver with my best buddy Jeff this past weekend and the scenery was gorgeous.  We took Highway 50 from just past Reno to where it meets up with I-70 east of I-15, a very nice road with very little traffic.  I definitely recommend it if you have the opportunity.  I love the basin and range landscape of Nevada and western Utah, very arid but with a subtle beauty and the fall and spring are the ideal times to be there.  The weather was partly cloudy, adding another dimension to the drama of the alternating desert and mountain range landscapes.  We only stopped a couple of times for pictures, trying to make good time on our journey, but I soaked in as much as I could.  Definitely a better view than from my desk.  I really want to go back to visit Great Basin National Park and wander around that area taking pictures of all the unique rock formations.  Of course, the canyon country of central Utah is very scenic as well and I need to spend more time there.  Lots of potential trips to take with my camper!