According to Google, it was back in 1977 that color photographs started appearing regularly in daily newspapers. “The first uses, in front-page photos, caused a bit of a sensation,” wrote Robert Dixon, a Midwest editor, writer and independent journalist. “In those days, it was quite expensive because it required significant technological changes at every step in the process, from the film the photographers used to the presses used to print the newspapers.”

Here at the Greenfield Recorder, we were about two decades behind the times. A shallow dive into the bound volumes reveals that color did not come to our front pages on a regular basis until the mid-1990s. Taking color photos was reserved for holidays and required advance planning — except for notable occasions such as the following, back in 1985: As recounted in a 2013 tribute to longtime photographer Charles “Chuck” Blake Jr., the Recorder photographer whose mostly black-and-white images of Franklin County life were seen by thousands of residents for decades as The Recorder’s chief photographer, Blake was the first on the scene of a 1985 fiery train derailment in north Greenfield that forced evacuation of half the town.

“In a time when taking color photos was reserved for holidays and required advance planning, Blake had the presence of mind to shoot color film, which the newspaper managed to use the next day to capture the drama of orange flames and deep black smoke pouring into the noon sky from the derailed chemical tanker.”

“Color got readers’ attention,” Dixon said, “and advertisers wanted to use color to make their ads stand out.” In fact, color was so startling, and drew the eye so much, that local advertisers running the more expensive color ad in the Greenfield Recorder requested (in vain) that theirs to be the only color on the page — or so we’ve heard.

A big breakthrough in the use of color in the Greenfield Recorder came in 2008, with the installation of a state-of-the-art flexographic press made by Cerutti and shipped from Italy, where it was built, to the new press room specially prepared for it at the Northampton headquarters of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, our sister paper.

With our latest printing press up and running, the use of color exploded. Before the Cerutti press, mechanical limitations dictated which pages could have color. With the arrival of the new press, color became available on every page, and soon, it was everywhere: Advertising supplements, like Home and Garden, were “all-color.” Our niche magazines, which include Valley Kids, Healthy Life, Going Green, were all-color.

With the exception of the Opinion page, color became ubiquitous in this paper. Our award-winning photographer Paul Franz’s nature photos, sports shots and breaking news photos received the full-color impact they deserved. Pat Leuchtman’s Between the Rows ran in color; so did Bill Danielson’s Speaking of Nature column. Arts and entertainment feature stories ran in glorious color, and our food pages, like Tinky Weisblat’s Blue Plate Special series, just popped with color. Even the comics page, on Saturdays, got its own dose of color.

We all got spoiled.

But color is expensive to process and print. Four plates — one for each color of ink — have to be made for every color page, whereas black and white pages require only one, black plate. That’s why, when this newspaper had to pinch pennies in January, we were able to pinch a lot of pennies by dispensing with color pages on all but the section fronts and pages that contain color ads, helping us reduce related costs by nearly 35 percent.

It has been painful and, of course, readers noticed, and you have let us know. The biggest outcry came from fans of Bill Danielson, who submits his own nature photographs directing our attention to the coloration of birds, animals and flowers — fine pointers lost in black-and-white printing.

While we can’t add more color pages at this time, we heard you. So, with the gracious acquiescence of Sports Editor Jeff LaJoie, Danielson’s column on Mondays will run on B1, which has color, instead of on B6, which is black and white.

We love that you care, and we join you in hoping for the quick return of more color to the pages of the Greenfield Recorder.

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