LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24 -- With the completion of a $46 million color press expansion project, the Los Angeles Times now offers advertisers more color advertising positions than any newspaper in Southern California. The installation of 10 new color towers and the conversion of five existing color towers at The Times' three Southern California printing facilities increased color printing capacity by 33 percent to 64 color pages daily, an increase of 16 pages. The Times can now print 32 pages of color in each of the two press runs, compared with 24 pages per run previously. More color advertising positions are now available primarily in the Main News, Calendar and Classifieds real estate and automotive sections, where demand for color advertising has been the highest. Other sections -- in particular advertising-only supplemental sections -- also will benefit from the increased color capacity. "This expansion benefits advertisers and readers in several different ways," said John Puerner, publisher, Los Angeles Times. "For advertisers, we'll have new and more color positions in those parts of the paper where there's been high advertiser demand. Color ads provide a competitive advantage to advertisers and more creative flexibility. For readers, additional color will make the newspaper a much more engaging experience." Early advertiser reaction has been positive, especially from the movie studios whose use of color increased during the first quarter due to the increased capabilities. The Times' color expansion project began in early 2004. Installation and testing were completed this month. The Times, a member of the International Newspaper Color Quality Club, was one of the first newspapers to introduce four-color printing in 1989.