The press proof, or how not to pay for the same print run twice

In most spending categories, a mistake can be corrected. In printing, it cannot. The day the boxes are opened and the colours are wrong, the run is paid for, the paper is used up and the trade-show date has not moved. The only variable left is paying again.

Hence one document we never skip: the press proof.

What a press proof actually is

It is a proof — digital, or printed on the final stock for sensitive jobs — that the client approves and signs before the press runs. What is signed is what will be delivered.

Its real function is not administrative but protective, and it works both ways:

• for you, it freezes what you accepted: nobody gets to “correct” the file afterwards;
• for us, it sets the limit of our liability: anything that appeared on the press proof and was not flagged is not reprinted at our expense.

If a dispute arises, it is the only document anyone looks at. That is why it is dated, why it carries the job reference, and why it is kept on file.

The four errors that cost you a print run

1. The file is in RGB

A screen displays in red-green-blue; a press prints in cyan-magenta-yellow-black. The conversion is not neutral: deep blues and saturated greens do not exist in CMYK and come out dull. A logo whose blue turns purple across five hundred brochures is a damaged identity on five hundred copies.

What we do: convert to CMYK before the proof, and flag in writing the shades that cannot be held — beforehand, not after.

2. The bleed was forgotten

No guillotine cuts to a tenth of a millimetre. If a block of colour stops exactly at the trimmed size, the cut leaves a white sliver on one copy in three.

What we do: 3 mm of bleed all round, crop marks, and a check that nothing important sits closer than 5 mm to the edge.

3. The resolution is a screen resolution

An image at 72 dots per inch is perfect on screen and unreadable on paper. You need 300 at the actual printed size — which is not the same as 300 on an image you are about to enlarge fourfold.

What we do: check resolution at final size, and ask for the original artwork rather than an enlargement when definition is short.

4. The fonts are not outlined

A font that is neither supplied nor outlined is silently substituted when the file is opened. The text stays, the layout shifts — sometimes by a single line, which nobody notices before the product is in hand.

What we do: outline the text or collect the font files, then compare visually against the original.

The order of work that prevents reprints

1. Specification — format, stock, weight, finishing, quantity, deadline. We systematically price two or three quantity tiers: the unit price drops fast, and the decision is yours.
2. File check — colour, resolution, bleed, fonts. Every non-conformity is reported in writing, with the correction we propose.
3. Press proof — you approve. Nothing runs before that.
4. Production and delivery — printing, finishing, inspection, delivery on site. Items that need assembling are delivered assembled and checked.

One last thing, about lead time

The most common mistake is not technical, it is calendar-related: files arrive too late for any time to remain between the check and the date of the event. A press proof approved the day before a trade show no longer protects anyone — it leaves no room to redo anything.

Count your lead time backwards, from the date you need the material in hand, not the date it is due to be delivered.