From time to time, I read these remarks on LinkedIn: print quality isn’t what it used to be, and people start complaining. And every time, a smile appears on my face: “Really???” So, let’s do a reality check with some older, ‘high quality’ print jobs AND just ordinary contemporary print, like free supermarket folders and – why not – newspaper printing.
Contents: HiFi Color promotion vs free supermarket magazine | Photobook: old offset vs current digital | Old photobook vs current newspaper | The evolution of print quality |But why are people complaining? | Why is this important? | Updates
HiFi Color promotion vs free supermarket magazine
The first example I want to show you is a copy of a really high-quality print job from a few decades ago, one my friend Henk Gianotten gave me a few years ago. It is the ‘Davis Inc HiFi Color Project’ from 1993. It was produced to show the quality of a 7-color system and stochastic screening (FM).
When trying to find information about that project, the AI Overview by Google shows the following:
“The Davis Inc. HiFi Color Project was a significant initiative in 1993 focused on developing high-fidelity (Hi-Fi) color separation and printing techniques, specifically using a seven-color offset printing process (heptachromy).
The project aimed to achieve more realistic and accurate color reproduction in printing than was possible with the standard four-color (CMYK) process. The initiative was highlighted in the 1994 publication Prentarinn, which noted that around a hundred participants were involved in the collaborative effort.
A visual example of the results from the project, which utilized a first-order digital FM screen, has been documented in academic contexts, such as a dissertation from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Mills Davis of DAVIS, Inc. was also a speaker at related imaging conferences during this period, focusing on advancements in color technology and visualization.”
Now let’s compare that extraordinary print piece with a few free promotional magazines from one of the supermarkets I shop at regularly. Check not only color quality, but also detail, e.g., in the highlights. (full size picture 1, picture 2)
Here are a few details, captured with a USB microscope. All images were taken at the same magnification. Regarding the first comparison: the old folder also had some images with AM screening, to get a fair comparison with the 2025 print, I used that AM picture, not the version with FM screening.
Photobook: old offset vs current digital
My second comparison is a book about Heidelberg (the city) by Brausdruck GmbH, dating from 1990. I can’t imagine that I bought this, so I assume I got it as a present during a visit to Heidelberg (the press manufacturer), either late 1998 or somewhere in 1999.
What surprised me the most about this one was the lack of vibrancy in most of the color pictures… But, to be honest, this could also be due to the originals, since some of the pictures with more extreme colors (like a sunset) were more vibrant. Anyway, the pictures in the free supermarket magazines I showed in the previous example look much better, in every way. Photography has also evolved significantly over the past decades.
For comparison, I used the book I published for my 60th birthday, printed on an Xerox Iridesse using the XCMYK profile (in case you haven’t heard of it, check out my articles, both theoretical and practical). And if you want to see the whole booklet, check out my photo blog (which, unfortunately, is in Dutch due to a technical issue with the English website). (full size)
And again a detail.
Old photobook vs current newspaper
The last one is a very special comparison. I have an old photobook, the Vogue book of Fashion Photography from 1979, and let’s see how it compares in quality to the newspaper I’m subscribed to (De Standaard, published by MediaHuis). Please keep in mind that the photobook was printed on very heavy paper, while the newspaper was printed on ordinary newsprint. And I do have to say that the picture shows the photobook a bit better than what my eyes told me: from what I can see, the darkest parts in both aren’t that different (and both aren’t very dark: L = 41,89 vs 36,38, measured with a Nix Spectro 2, D50, 2°, M1). (full size)
And again, some details: a part of his moustache and the pearls around the neck of the lady on the right.
The evolution of print quality
In a previous article, I already described the evolution of offset print quality. Here’s how Google Gemini described that evolution, based on press releases from vendors during drupa years. Gemini divided the evolution into four periods:
- The Analog Era (1972 – early 1990s): Conventional AM Screening Dominance
- 1970s and early 1980s: 133 to 150 LPI standard quality, 175 LPI premium quality
- Late 1980s and early 1990s: 150 and 175 LPI standard quality
- The Digital Transition & CTP Revolution (1995 – early 2000s): Precision in Dot Reproduction
- 175 and 200 LPI are more commonplace for high-quality
- The Era of Stochastic & Hybrid Screening (2004 – 2012): Beyond Fixed LPI
- 300 LPI introduced, ‘perceived’ quality in FM screening up to 340 LPI
- Peak Performance & Automation (2016 – 2024): Consistently Reproducing Ultra-Fine Details
- 400 – 600 LPI possible, although not widely used
- Modern presses supporting 1% to 99% dots with conventional screening up to 240 or 300 LPI.
This is the conclusion of Google Gemini: “By 2024, the capability to consistently achieve the highest print quality using very fine AM screens (e.g., 240 LPI, 300 LPI) or advanced FM screening is a standard feature of modern sheetfed offset workflows.”
But why are people complaining?
Well, good question… At least for some it’s because people like to complain. Some others might have forgotten what print used to look like, what print quality used to look like. And then there are the people who think complaining is part of their job description. Stay with me for a second!
What is the job of a print buyer who does press checks? Checking whether the print quality is good, right? So, let’s say the print buyer works with an excellent printing company that delivers right on target – even within a very tiny tolerance – right from the start, every time. In that case, he never has to adjust the print job, it’s always spot on. How will that make him feel? How does he think his superior, his manager, will look at him when he never has to make comments or adjust what the press operator is doing? It looks like he is not doing his job…
When I started in the printing industry in October 1988, my first visit to a printing shop was to a well-known printing company, I guess around 100 people (which was, in those days, quite a large printing company in Belgium. I had a meeting with the technical director and one of the owners as part of my training program at the printing industry federation. At one point, he told me, “Mister Hagen, I’m going to tell you a story that you will remember the rest of your life, about our most difficult customer.” His story was from the days of typesetting: customers would bring in a pile of A4 sheets with the text, and digital file exchange didn’t exist yet. They had to type that into their typesetter (probably a Monotype or Linotype). And they had a customer who ordered print jobs regularly, and every time he came in for a layout check (before the films and plates were made). And every time he had comments, he would make denigrating remarks about how bad they were at their work. No matter how hard they tried – including several people proofreading – he took his time, a lot of time, to find an error and complain about it. They were losing a lot of time to satisfy that customer. Until one day, one of the prepress guys suggested deliberately inserting an error somewhere on the first pages. The technical director was OK with that suggestion, and guess what: the customer spotted the error within a few minutes, started complaining about the fact that once again there was an error, and how important it was that he would check everything himself because they ALWAYS made mistakes, and then the rest of the layout check went very fast. What used to take many hours is now under an hour, saving the printing company a lot of time on every print job.
It was all about him feeling important, justifying his job. Or in other words: job protection.
Why is this important?
When people make statements like “it used to be much better in the past”, you need to do a reality check. And in terms of print quality, it’s very clear: print has never been this high! Much more detail, more colorful, and within tighter tolerances. Even supermarket folders end up in the recycling bin very quickly. Even newspapers can have relatively high quality these days, with vibrant colors, especially the magazines in the WE editions.
When people still complain, it probably has to do with psychology, with behavioral economics. The days when print buyers were tech-savvy and helped press operators get the color right are long gone. Print buyers usually aren’t tech-savvy anymore, and with a highly standardized print process, including inline measurement systems and automated color control, their influence is reduced to whether they like what they see or not, which is a personal assessment, not a science-based evaluation.
And because it’s their job to guard their brand color, they will complain. It’s in their job description. If they never complained, e.g., because the print jobs are within tight tolerances thanks to that standardization and (inline) quality control, they would be out of a job. So they complain, to show that their job is crucial… Even when there is no reason at all to complain…
My sincere hope for 2026 is that printing companies and press operators get the credit and appreciation they deserve. What I’m seeing daily as a print consumer in Belgium is excellent print quality, with very short turnaround times, and all of this with only tiny profit margins. That deserves respect, not complaints.
UPDATE 10/01/2026: When I posted about this article on LinkedIn, it immediately got some traction. Including a comment from Morten (from Inkish), who said I should also look at the entire print product, not just the print quality, but also paper quality, finishing, binding, …
Paper quality from the past is a bit difficult: paper will age, no matter how good you try to preserve it.
But I do have a nice example of the binding…
The ‘old’ example is a book I bought the first time I visited the Pilsner Urquell brewery, in December 1989 (or maybe December 1990). Those days, the Czechoslovak printing industry was known for its quality. And the print quality of this book is – given the date – really good. It’s better than the book from Heidelberg (the city) that I showed above. But the binding quality, well, that one wasn’t that good… The page in this picture is a bit off…
If you look at the bottom margin, you can clearly see it: on the left side, it’s 2,1 cm between the image and the border, on the right side it’s 1,8 cm. The page size is A4.
Now let’s look at a more modern print job, my ‘corona photobook’, which I published in 2020. When discussing this print project with Jeroen van Druenen from Jubels printing, he suggested to use a ‘Swiss binding’, which makes the pages fall open nicely. The first picture shows the binding itself, the second how nicely it falls open.
Coming back to Morten his comment, I don’t see that much problems with paper quality and finishing / binding. Only sometimes I see issues with folds in my newspaper, or in a book. But this is exceptional. I also checked my paper bin and took some random publicity folders I received recently, excellent binding quality! Some of them were probably printed on a web press, which might have had inline finishing.
Yes, the print quality nowadays is far better than in the past. I’am subsciber of the Dutch newspaper “De Volkskrant” since 1964. Since 2000 they publish a weekly supplement called “Volkskrant Magazine” in full colour. The first years the magazine was printed in gravure by Roto Smeets. Nowadays it’s printed in web offset by the Belgian printer T’Hooft in Aalter (near Ghent). The quality in offset is far better than in gravure. In these 25 years I watched the quality (you know my quality obsession!) and came to the same conclusion: There is a continious improvement in color separations, print consistancy, color register and press register. Recently the Volkskrant published a book and reproduced the covers of the Volkskrant Magazines since 2000. 25 years with hundreds of covers. This book shows exactly what you described and explained .
Thx Henk! And glad you agree. 😉
The same here with the magazines of ‘De Standaard’. And just look at all the free publicity folders I get every week. E.g. the one from Jumbo, that’s very nice quality.