A reduction in the amount of colour used has been the immediate result for a Minnestota newspaper of using a cloud-based ink optimisation system.

The Albert Lea Tribune - part of Boone Newspapers - started using ProImage's Oncolor ECO a couple of months ago, with the primary goal to improve their print quality. Too early to determine monthly financial savings, they immediately noticed a decrease in colour ink use, less ink rub off and improvement of print quality.

About 6-10 pages daily go through the software which partially replaces CMY colours in an image with black.

Production director Terry Thissen says the process took a few minutes to configure, and notes sharper print quality and ease of use.

Founded in 1897, the daily newspaper covers Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa with a circulation of 4500 (Sunday 7500) and now produces a news website, a magazine and several special sections.