NEW YORK, NY, August 31, 2005 — In October, Superior Printing Ink Co., a New York City-based lithographic printing ink manufacturer, expects to complete the installation of its first Color Resource Center. Designed to assist with all phases of color management from preflighting to post-production, the Center is being provided for Pictorial Offset Corporation, a worldwide graphic arts organization based in Carlstadt, NJ. Serving many Fortune 500 customers, Pictorial specializes in high quality sheetfed and web printing as well as high-end color retouching prepress services and complete finishing, fulfillment and mailing services. Pictorial’s Color Resource Center , a sophisticated extension of the company’s current in-plant ink facility installed by Superior several years ago, will provide an additional range of value-added services that Superior is offering under its Preflight to Profitability (P2P) program. Superior Printing Ink will present the Color Resource Center and other services offered under the program in booth #17025 at the Print 05 show in Chicago from September 9-15. “The overall purpose of the Preflight to Profitability program is to provide a total cost solution that optimizes our customers’ print production processes,” says Michael Brice, Superior’s president and COO. “Our larger in-plant ink facilities, such as Pictorial’s, provide an opportunity to offer some or all of the program’s wide range of services through a Color Resource Center. These services are most effective when provided from within an in-plant, since collaboration between Superior’s in-plant staff and our client’s staff is part of the day-to-day specification of ink and color in the ink room.” Superior Printing Ink has 30 in-plant ink facilities nationwide, staffed and equipped to enable Superior to manage customer ink requirements including color matching. According to Lester Samuels, a managing partner of Pictorial Offset, Superior’s offer of a Color Resource Center accorded perfectly with Pictorial’s growing wish for “an even more comprehensive, world-class, in-house, color management capability." "When we conceived of having one, naturally Superior Ink was the first company that came to mind," Samuels says. "We’ve been using Superior throughout most of our 68-year history and have always been impressed with their quality and thoroughness. With Superior, it’s not just about selling us ink for our presses. They have brought solutions to our entire process, from the early estimating stage of production, through prepress and CTP, and into our press room.” Pictorial’s Color Resource Center will be a new ink room providing all of Superior’s (P2P) services. Included will be a complete Pantone library. Software applications will include SIMONS (Superior Ink Management Onsite System), a proprietary system providing job costing, billing, inventory management and an ink formula database; PCMS (Precision Color Mixing System for Windows), a proprietary, small batch blending system allowing Pantone and special non-Pantone color matches using existing and dormant inventory; and Gretag Macbeth Spectrophotometry. The facility will also interface with Pictorial’s LOGIC enterprise management information system for selected access to scheduling and job planning modules. Superior will provide seminars on an ongoing basis. Those offered to date include color bar overview training; GRACOL standard overview; CGATS overview; color specification and spectrophotometry; and New Technologies for Brand Consistency, presented in May 2005 at Pictorial University, a program of seminars put on by Pictorial Offset Corporation for its customers and prospective customers. The Color Resource Center will operate 24/7, as does Pictorial. The new services will build on a solid base of existing Superior services, according to Samuels. “Superior Ink has been right there with us since we began fingerprinting our presses over 25 years ago,” he says. “They have helped us profile our entire production and proofing workflow calibrations; provided us with the tools to understand exactly what happens to color throughout our facility; helped us establish measurement tools to maintain consistent color; and have been outstanding in supporting our training needs with existing personnel as well as our new hires.” In 1999, Pictorial became the first commercial printer in the world to earn accreditations from the International Standard Organization both for quality (ISO 9002) and environmental compliance (ISO 14001). As part of its continuous improvement process, Pictorial Offset Corporation was recertified this year to the new ISO 9001:2000 and the new ISO 14001:2004 requirements. Although Superior, which has an ISO-certified Central Manufacturing Facility in Connecticut, was not directly involved in Pictorial’s applications for the ISO certifications, “they were already an integral part of our team as we developed our own process standards,” says Samuels. “The fact that they had met our standards long before our applications made the certification process very easy for us.” Superior’s Central Manufacturing Facility was recertified to the ISO 9001:2000 requirements for quality in 2003 and services the company’s 25 branches around the country. With the new Color Resource Center, says Samuels, “we are looking to Superior to help us further raise the quality standards and levels of calibration within the printing industry. By working with them in the past, we’ve been able to reduce dot gain and increase our trapping ability, capabilities to produce very high line-screen rulings, contrast, and quality. We anticipate that Superior will continue in this capacity as a partner and help bring us to even higher levels of quality for our customers. “In our opinion,” concludes Samuels, “Superior’s color-matching capabilities are second to none. With its ability to help accurately reproduce color for brand marketing and communication, Superior Ink is a leading supplier to the communications industry.”