Designing reMIND – Part 5 – Proofing
on June 15, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Christopher Kosek
Proofing. This is where books are made.
Part of your printing fees include proofing. For a printer a proof is what they need approved before they put any ink on paper for you. If you wanted orange and it prints out blue or you misspell your own name that’s your responsibility to catch. They have an expression in printing…Garbage in, Garbage out. You have to allow a lot of buffer time for print and proof unless you want to pay very very expensive rush fees. Our entire proofing back and forth took a few weeks. We got a large parcel of proofs. It was intimidating. Here’s a sampler from our print reps email:
- 6 sets of text wet proofs for each pages (P. 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24). Please return 1 set to me.
- 5 sets of PLC wet proofs. Please return 1 set to me.
- 1 set of PLC proof with gloss lamination. Please review this carefully. This is the only cover approval I need since it will represent the final bulk. Please return to me
- 2 completed set of ozalid (Text + Front & Back (PLC) + Foil Stamp) Please return 1 set to me. This is NOT for color it’s for pagination, orientation, etc
- 1 completed set of text layout
WHAT IS ALL THAT? yeah my thoughts exactly.
Wet Proofs: It’s something that you’ll rarely get unless you are printing in Asia. Basically the printer takes your files, does separations, makes plates and does a few prints of a few pages on the actual press with the actual paper. Its time consuming and expensive and if you ask an American Printer to do it, they’ll just see dollar signs or tell you flat out its not worth the trouble. From what I’ve been told, Asian printers are the only ones that still do this as regular practice, which is a great opportunity for a designer to see really accurate proofs. It really builds your confidence in the final piece.
Ozlid Proofs: those are basically a low quality layout and positioning proof. They print your book out in signatures and deliver it to you unbound. You can make sure the pages are in order and see how it will all flow. The colors will be screwed up, the paper will be junky, it’s just to make sure you’re organized.
If you notice, they ask us to return proofs to them. Basically you sign or initial the proof and that is what the printer has for them as legal protection. It is you saying “I APPROVE THIS….PRINT IT!” It is pushing the red button. It’s also protection for you, because if the final output differs from the proof, they are responsible for fixing it or doing the whole job over again.
It’s amazing how you can send things back and forth dozens of times. You stare at it for weeks and still miss things. I misspelled the word FOREWORD. I had FORWARD. That word is my personal nemesis. I always mix it up. No one caught it till we got the proofs back. We fixed a few typos, created new files and sent them off to the printer. We got back a few proofs. Some for color, some for pagination and content. Only at the end when we had typo fixes did we accept a digital proof. It’s an interesting process but very essential. Early on Jason was offered the option of only doing digital proofs to save money. This really is pointless and does nothing for you. In effect they send you the same PDF back that you send them. Once you sign off on the proof they are not responsible for any content in that book that is different from the proof. Even if you spell your own name wrong, that’s on you cause you said it was good. If the colors come out wrong, that’s on you for not catching it. If pages are out of order, that’s on you for not noticing. Seeing a pattern? If not for the printed proofs we would have never found some small typos. Also the few days in between upload and proof gives you time to recover and look at it with fresh eyes which is an incredibly important thing.
And now the design is done…the books are sitting in palettes in Jason’s garage…can’t wait to see it the final product!
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Well that sums up the series on designing reMIND by Christopher Kosek. If you missed one of the previous installments check them out at the links below:
Designing reMIND – Part 1 – Where do you Start?
Designing reMIND – Part 2 – Collaboration
Designing reMIND – Part 3 – The Guts
Designing reMIND – Part 4 – Book Production
Designing reMIND – Part 5 – Proofing (You are here)
Using digital printers like Ka-Blam, I’ve had to deal with digital proof copies. Ka-Blam has since ended that and I have to order one copy as a proof. Still, you are right – it’s important to get a proof and make sure everything is proper.
Are you using digital or offset printing? I know both have advantages and disadvantages.
So they’re called ozlid proofs in English, good to know. We call them sherpa over here and it’s an etymological mystery. There are other kinds of hi-res proofs you can ask for to check the colors, such as chromaline, which is done separately from the plates but still very faithful; they won’t print the whole book for you that way though, one usually picks a few key pages. I checked my darker pages this way this time around because I always had a problem with them turning out too dark, and the all-important cover, of course. To my surprise there was no additional charge for those proofs.
When you said you were printing in Asia I wondered how you’d managed to communicate with the printer, but I’m impressed, they seem to be well-drilled for long-distance collaboration. My printing involves a lot of visits to the printer, especially because sending large files is all but impossible in this country (grrr), but being a familiar face has its perks and I can get a book printed in under 3 weeks :)
When I read wet proofs, I was really surprised – until I found out you did your printing in China.
Chinese printing services are really taking off with their usage in the US and Canada, but it seems the best benefit comes if you’re on the West Coast. Depending on your location, you end up paying just as much for Chinese printing and shipping to the East coast, than if you got it printed on NA soil on the East coast.
Update: Got my copies of the books and they look amazing! Really great printing and binding quality.
@Max West–we printed offset for this. Digital is a great solution for small runs, but once you start getting over 100 copies the affordability scale starts sliding the opposite direction. At a certain point it becomes more expensive to do a larger run such as this (2500) on a digital press. As far as advantages i think you get better color rendition as well as better coverage especially with things like subtle greys. Things like line screens and ink coverage, paper choice start to come into play. I’ve done short runs on high end digital presses and they look great, but offset is still the thing if you want to do a good sized run.
You’re right about the quantity issue, CK. While offset printing is more expensive, it is better suited to big print runs like thousands or hundreds of thousands. If memory serves, I think you get a cheaper per unit price the more you print through offset.
also as far as digital thats a very broad spectrum of processes and quality. On the high end you have stuff like the HP indigo which is a proper digital press, and on the low end you have glorified Kinko’s laser printing. Thats the grand canyon of quality, so its important to ask the printer what kind of equipment they have, do a bit of research and understand that ‘digital’ isn’t a catch all.
I got my book yesterday! (nr 597) Along with my Wormworldsaga print and I also saw Kung Fu Panda 2, it was a really fun day! :)
The book looks amazing! The quality is so good, the paper, the binding, the colours and I love the size, it`s exactly right; your artwork with the textures looks amazing at this size (I still can`t believe those black, crispy lines are pencil!), I`m still discovering new little details.
Kudos too, for you and your collegues, for Kung Fu Panda 2, I loved it and every scene looks so beautiful!