Proofing for artwork proof is an important step in the CD/DVD replication process. It gives you one last chance to see the artwork before it goes off to be printed thousands of times. Here is a checklist that might help you organize what needs to be verified:

• Bleed: make sure there is enough bleed, this is the area that is beyond the crop mark or trim lines
• Crop marks / Trim lines: look for crop marks or trim lines and make sure it is not cropping any important graphics or text off. If the artwork should bleed out, the graphic should continue beyond the trim. If the artwork has a white border, make sure to check the thickness of border is satisfactory.
• Safe area: make sure no graphics or text is less than 1/8″ away from the trim or fold, or it might be cut off since the trim line will slightly shift during actual production
• Correct size: dimension of artwork should be correct, print and cut out the proof to ensure the right sizing
• Fonts / type: check to make sure correct fonts are displayed, whether it should be regular, bold or italics
• Text content: proof read all text to make sure there is no typo, however this should have been checked long before this step
• Correct images: make sure the right images have been used, especially when multiple revisions have been made
• Special effects: look for any drop shadow and transparency effects, make sure they show up correctly
• Spot colors: if any spot colors is used, it should be noted on the proof
• PDF artifacts: sometimes you might notice that the vertical strokes of certain letters such as ‘L’, ‘H’, ‘I’ might look thicker than the other letters. Usually this is a problem on the acrobat reader, and the way to verify it is the print the pdf proof out, it should be a concern if the problem does not show up on the actual print out.
• Inside spine of digipaks: note that the inside spine of a digipak will be white, since it is the unprinted side of the paper. There is an option to print a solid color or CMYK colors at an extra cost.
• Hard copy proof vs pdf proof: It is never accurate to compare how a pdf looks on the screen to the actual products, the color/contrast of images, thickness of text will vary from monitor to monitor. PDF proofs serve as a reference for positioning only, if the exact color needs to be verified a hard copy proof can be produced for an extra cost - this is the ONLY way to prove anything other than positioning accurately.

These are our suggested minimum steps to verify we have received all the graphic elements correctly for print; if there are special requirements for your specific project, please check for that as well.

Remember, when you sign off on a proof, you indicate that everything on the proof is correct. If a problem is discovered afterwards it is likely that you will incur additional costs to fix it.

Next, we’ll talk about the different artwork proof options.