More and more print shops do a “digital proof” instead of a real physical proof copy like you’d get in the olden times.
In other words, you send them a pdf of the thing you want printed, and they send you the pdf back.
What is this ritual intended to accomplish?
In: 5
The pre-press processing of the PDF format is now so automatic and consistent that what you seen on the screen is very close to what gets printed, especially insofar as what most people care about – names, dates, text, arrangement, basic color correctness etc.
The things that used to cause issues in actually printing, like hairlines, overprinting, ink saturation are either flagged or managed automatically. Color can still be a bit off due to the differences in medium – screen vs paper, but close enough for general audiences with differences predictable by professionals. Professionals still ask for hard copy proofs on occasion, but usually only digital print proofs for offset – which won’t include special inks or varnishes, so they have to be predicted or imagined anyway.
Edit: one thing you might be wondering is if you send a pdf in the first place, do they send you back the same pdf? They do not – they check and remake the pdf for compliance to their printing machines.
Latest Answers