The Colour Printing Specialists!

Understanding Proof Warnings

Have you received artwork warnings with your Soft PDF proof and are not 100% sure what they mean? Well you have come to the right place! We have created a list of explanations for our common artwork warnings.

If you have additional questions or cannot find the explanation you are looking for please email cmyk2@cmykonline.com.au or contact us here and one of our team will be happy to help you out.

Please note, it is always the customers responsibility to supply press ready artwork and to ensure that the soft PDF Proof is 100% correct before approving it for print.

Image Resolution

Very Low Resolution Images: This warning means that we have detected images in your artwork which are 100dpi or less.

Low Resolution Images: This means that we have detected images in your artwork which are less than 300dpi.

For the best printing results, we recommend that all images be supplied at 300dpi when placed at 100% size. For further information on image resolution please refer to our artwork requirements page.

Borders / Strips

Uneven Border: This means that your supplied artwork contains a border or an element which forms a border, which is less than 5mm in width and/or is placed less than 5mm inside the trim edge of your design.

We recommend that all borders (including partial borders) are at least 5mm in width and/or placed 5mm inside the trim edge. Narrow borders, or borders placed too close to the edge of your design may result in uneven borders after printing/trimming. Please note: Borders are not the same as internal bleed. For detailed information on how to setup your borders, please click here.

Uneven Strip: If you have received this message, we have detected a strip in your supplied artwork which is placed within 3mm of the trim edge of your design.

We recommend that all strips are at least 5mm in width and/or placed 5mm inside the trim edge. Narrow strips, or strips placed too close to the edge of your design may result in uneven strips after printing/trimming.Please see here for further information on strips.

White Border: If you supply files with incorrect bleed, a white border may be added to make your artwork press ready. This white border will be placed 5mm inside the trim edge on all sides. If you do not wish to have this white border, you will need to amend your artwork and re-supply correctly prepared artwork.

Text / Font Issues

Rasterized Fonts: This warning indicates we have found rasterized fonts in your artwork. This means that some or all of the text in your artwork has been flattened and converted from a vector to raster or bitmap format (e.g. jpeg, png, tiff, etc..).

For the best and clearest printing results we recommend all artwork is supplied with vector based fonts. Vector fonts can be scaled indefinitely without losing quality. Whereas rasterized fonts will degrade and lose quality when enlarge.

Ultra Light Fonts: This means we have detected thin fonts used in your artwork. Due to being too small, light, narrow or thin, this text text is at risk of breaking up or being difficult to distinguish after printing.

We recommend that all text should be set to at least 8pt using a non-narrow, non-ultra light and non-thin font. We also recommend all small text is set to 100% black. For further text information, please see here.

Text Holes: We have found text in your supplied artwork which has been placed across occurs a drill hole. To avoid text being removed by hole drilling, we recommend you follow our guideline templates.

Trimming Variance

Trimming Variance: This warning means we have detected an artwork element (text, logo, image, etc..) which has been placed within 3mm or 5mm (depending on the product you have ordered) of the trim edge of  your design.

We don’t recommend text or important elements be placed within 3mm / 5mm of the trim edge to avoid the risk of such elements being fully or partially cut off after trimming. For further information, please see here.

External Bleed

No Bleed on Some Elements: This indicates that certain elements in your artwork are not setup with correct external bleed. For more detailed information on which elements this refers to, please email cmyk2@cmykonline.com.au or contact us here.

For detailed information on how to setup correct external bleed please see here.

Folding Panels

Incorrect panels widths for folded brochures: This means that the folding panels in your supplied artwork are the wrong width for the chosen product. Because of this there is a possibility of misaligned panels after folding.

We recommend referring to our guideline templates for the correct panels widths for your chosen product.

Faint Lines

Faint Lines: This warning means we have found thin lines in your artwork. Due to being too thin or too light these lines are at risk of breaking up or being difficult to distinguish after printing.

We recommend that all lines in your artwork are at least 0.3pt or 0.1mm in width (lines that are a light colour, or reversed out of a solid block of colour should be thicker where possible). For further information please see here.

Spreads

Text or Important Graphics Across Spreads: This means we have detected text (or important graphics) placed across spreads in your artwork. Because of this, there is a risk that such elements may not align exactly after binding. To avoid misalignment issues, we recommend that text never be placed across spreads in your design.