ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. -- April 2, 2007 -- Owyhee Publishing Co., Inc. in Homedale, Ida., delivers page counts and a level of quality rivaling that of larger companies. The 15-person operation owns and prints the weekly newspaper Owyhee Avalanche, as well as printing area weeklies and shoppers for commercial customers. Like many smaller newspaper publishers, Owyhee Publishing faced an increasingly familiar equipment decision. The prepress department had made plates for the company's newspaper presses from imposed film. Problem was, the plate burner had reached the end of its useful life. "The choice came down to replacing the plate burner or upgrading to computer-to-plate," recalled Mark Aman, vice president of the family-owned company. "The plate burner was producing hot spots on the plates, and the drawdown time was ridiculously high. Buying a platesetter made more sense." Owyhee Publishing installed the Screen PlateRite News 2000 thermal platesetter in large part because of the reputation of Screen technology and its durability. "Screen equipment has good word of mouth from other printers," Aman said. "Based on what we heard, we felt the PlateRite system was the reliable choice." Owyhee Publishing's pressroom houses Goss Community and Web Leader presses. The prepress department averages 1,500 plates a month on the PlateRite News 2000. Aman said hot spots are a thing of the past. "Quality was a major reason we made the move to CTP," he said. "Our quality is much improved with the PlateRite system." The PlateRite News 2000 has taken on the role of a real workhorse, relieving the manual workload associated with the old system. "After one month of operation, we freed up a full-time person who had been burning plates using the old system," Aman said.