A5 proof colour-accurate, volume discount from €3.50

We are happy to supply your proof with the current UGRA/Fogra media wedge CMYK V3.0 with test report.

The UGRA/Fogra media wedge CMYK V3.0 is the worldwide standard for colour-accurate test prints. According to the Media Standard Offset Printing, a colour-accurate proof must have a media wedge whose colour values comply with the tolerances of ISO 12647-7. The colour patches of the current media wedge CMYK V3.0 provide increased sensitivity in the highlights and shadows compared to the previous version 2.X, which is still used by many other proof service providers.

For a proof to be colour and legally binding, it must be equipped with a media wedge. However, since hardly any printing company or agency has the technical measuring equipment to verify a media wedge on site, we offer you the option of providing the media wedge directly with a test report. This test report certifies that the media wedge and thus the proof is within the ISO tolerances and is colour and legally binding.  

Your proof options: 

• without media wedge
• one media wedge without test report per page (surcharge € 2.- / page)
• one media wedge with test report per page (surcharge € 4.- / page)
• one media wedge with test report per order (surcharge € 4.- total)

You can order the media wedges per page directly with the respective proof format. For a media wedge with test report per order, please select it as an additional item and place it separately in your shopping basket.

 

 

You can upload one or more files for each item after completing your order.
Each file can be up to 2 GB in size.

An example: You order 10 in DIN A3 format and 2 in DIN A2 format. After placing your order, you can upload a file with 10 pages in DIN A3 format for the 10 in DIN A3 format and two files with one page each in DIN A2 format for the two in DIN A2 format. If we should make multiple copies of a file, please let us know in the item message.

https://shop.proof.de/admin/categories.php?cPath=1&pID=15&action=new_product#

The illustration shows what the upload area for an A4 proof looks like before upload.

 

Now select your file to be proofed and upload it, or drag it into the upload window.

 

After uploading, you can check your proof data again, download it, delete it, or upload other data.

 

 

Now complete your order by pressing the "UPLOAD(S) COMPLETE, FINISH ORDER" button.

Your order is then no longer editable for you. We receive the message that we can now begin with the data check and proof.
 

You can view your order at any time even after completion, but cannot change it.

If your data should be faulty during the data check, we will reopen the order so you can delete the faulty data and upload new data. After that, please complete the order again.

Your uploaded data will remain on our server for at least 1 year, and can be viewed and downloaded for verification during this time.

Shipping costs and delivery times

Packaging and shipping Germany:

Up to DIN A4+ format:	From DIN A3 format:
DHL small parcel: € 4.70  UPS Express Saver: € 13.- (delivery by end of business day) UPS Express before 12:00: € 15.- UPS Express before 10:30: € 25.- DHL / FedEX Express before 9:00: € 75.- DHL Express with Saturday delivery: € 49.-	UPS parcel: € 9.- UPS Express Saver: € 13.- (delivery by end of business day) UPS Express before 12:00: € 15.- UPS Express before 10:30: € 25.- DHL / FedEX Express before 9:00: € 75.- DHL Express with Saturday delivery: € 49.-
The standard transit time for shipments within Germany is 1 to 4 working days*, in exceptional cases longer. Express shipments are usually delivered the next working day*. Orders with data receipt by 4 PM are dispatched on the same working day*. Orders with data receipt after 4 PM are dispatched on the following working day*. Express delivery before 9 AM is not possible in all areas of Germany. Please enquire briefly before ordering.
Packaging and shipping EU:
Up to DIN A4+ format:	From DIN A3 format:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.- UPS Express Saver: € 35.-	UPS parcel: € 19.- UPS Express Saver: € 45.-
The standard transit time for shipments to EU foreign countries is 2 to 5 working days*, in exceptional cases longer. Express shipments in European economic centres are usually delivered the next working day*, but can also have significantly longer transit times.
Packaging and shipping, Non-EU Europe and North America:
Up to DIN A4+ format:	From DIN A3 format:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.- UPS Express: € 45.-	Parcel or small parcel DHL/UPS: € 25.- UPS Express: € 55.-
The standard transit time for shipments abroad is 2 to 5 working days*, sometimes considerably longer. We have seen transit times of 6 weeks to New York. We therefore recommend that you select express shipping in particular for shipments to the USA that should arrive promptly. Express shipments are delivered the next or second working day*, but sometimes only a few days later.
Packaging and shipping rest of world
Up to DIN A4+ format:	From DIN A3 format:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.- UPS Express: € 55.-	Parcel or small parcel DHL/UPS: € 25.- UPS Express: € 75.-
The standard transit time for shipments worldwide is up to 15 working days*, in exceptional cases longer up to several weeks. We ship here by post priority registered mail or DHL small parcel international. We therefore recommend that you select express shipping in particular for shipments that should arrive promptly. Express shipments are usually delivered within four working days*, in exceptional cases also longer. Island locations and remote regions in the destination countries can significantly delay delivery.
The shipping zones are regulated differently by Deutsche Post, DHL and partly. To determine your exact price, please log in and place the required items in your shopping basket. After entering the delivery address, the shop displays the individual shipping options and calculates the shipping costs correctly.  In individual cases, we reserve the right to recalculate significantly higher shipping costs. This can happen with bulky and large shipments such as roll-ups or very large proofs, but also partly with orders to more remote regions or special economic centres: Example Croatia: Express shipping to a Croatian island costs four times as much as shipping to Zagreb. In some cases, we therefore have to recalculate higher shipping costs than quoted in the shop, as we can only take the country into account, but not the region during the shipping cost calculation. However, we will always inform you of any additional costs before dispatch.  If you have any questions, please contact us. *Working day = Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays in Germany and Baden-Württemberg. Please note the regulations in the various states (Wikipedia). No dispatch and no delivery on public holidays.
Country assignment for shipping by post or DHL / UPS standard The country assignments for shipping can be found here in detail.

To the proof prices

 

Most customers send us PDF data. We accept PDF, EPS, TIF and JPEG files for proofing. 

Black and white, CMYK or files with Pantone and HKS spot colours. PDF files in PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 format are optimal for proofing.

PDF/X-1a (widespread outside Europe) and PDF/X-3 are traditionally the PDF files optimised for printing. These ISO standards ensure, for example, that fonts and images are embedded. They are recognised and desired as standard for data exchange of print data at most printing companies. 

PDF/X-4 is the new printing standard for PDF files. In contrast to PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4 files can contain transparencies. PDF/X-3 was already a media-neutral standard, but 99% of all X-3 files contain only CMYK colours and spot colours. PDF/X-4 is still rarely, but increasingly desired by printing companies, as X-4 data allows separation to be placed as late as possible in the process chain. The standard offers many advantages, but also risks. 

proof GmbH is the only company in Germany certified by PDF/X-ready for proof output of PDF/X-4 data and has been a member of PDF/X-ready for several years.

If you want to get exact information about the advantages and disadvantages of the respective formats, we recommend the pages of PDF/X-ready. Here you will find all information, guides for PDF creation and Acrobat creation and verification profiles for PDF/X-4 files. 

PDF/X-ready guide for PDF/X creation
PDF preflight checks for Adobe Acrobat
Creator workflow for sheet-fed offset, web offset and newspaper printing

All three PDF/X standards can be selected and created during export in all common layout programmes. 

How we handle your colour data

For us, a proof is absolute colour accuracy. It is therefore important that you know exactly how we handle colours in your supplied files in detail. 

CMYK colours

With CMYK colours, the rule is simple: All CMYK colours contained in your proofs are output with their exact colour values in your requested output colour space. 

Example: You supply a PDF in ISOCoated (Fogra27) and order a proof in ISOCoatedV2 (Fogra39). A colour value of CMYK 100/70/0/0 in your PDF file will be output with its exact colour values 100/70/0/0 in your requested colour space ISOCoatedV2. No conversion from ISOCoated to ISOCoatedV2 takes place. This also applies to CMYK TIFFs or JPEGs.

RGB colours

If your PDF files contain RGB colours, we first check whether your PDFs comply with either the PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 standard, and whether your RGB images are correctly tagged with colour profiles and rendering intents. If this is the case, we check whether your PDFs have the correct output colour space. If this is also the case, we proof your PDFs taking the input profiles into account, i.e. we convert all your RGB data directly during proofing according to your designations from RGB to CMYK. If your images are in Device-RGB, you will receive a "data faulty" email with a note, as we cannot reliably interpret your RGB data. If your images are correctly tagged, but your output colour space does not match the requested proof output colour space, you will also receive a "data faulty" email.

Example: You supply a PDF/X-4 file with sRGB and AdobeRGB images with the output profile PSOCoatedV3 and order a proof in PSOCoatedV3: We proof your data and take all your contained RGB colour spaces and rendering intents into account correctly. However, if your file has ISOCoatedV2 as the output profile, we trigger a "data faulty" email, as we would now have to "override" your output colour space stored in the PDF, and thus have to perform colour transformations that are not clearly traceable to you.

If you do not send us PDFs, but pure TIFFs or JPEGs in RGB profiles, we trigger a "data faulty" email. If we should output your TIFFs or JPEGs in RGB profiles such as "sRGB" or "AdobeRGB" in these colour spaces or output them, for example, relatively colourmetrically to your requested output colour space, please let us know in the "Notes to your order" field, which you will find in the course of order processing. 

For photo prints in RGB colour spaces, you should choose our fineart prints, which are perfectly suited for this. Pure RGB output is actually not intended for proofs. 

Spot colours

We can simulate all spot colours very well - whether PANTONE, HKS, Toyo or individual, custom spot colours. The only exception: metallic and neon colours.

If your file contains spot colours such as PANTONE and HKS colours, our proofing software recognises these colours by their colour names. As long as your spot colours are correctly named like "PANTONE 123 C" or "HKS 15 N", we use the digital colour reference data stored in our system from the PANTONE and HKS master standards and apply your spot colours to the proof.

If you use a PANTONE "U" colour for "Uncoated" natural paper in a proof for photo printing standards such as ISOCoatedV2, we trigger a "data faulty" email. We can also simulate PANTONE "U" colours on a proof for photo printing paper, but an offset printing company could not print that, as PANTONE C colour values will always result when printing on photo printing paper. The same applies to HKS K or PANTONE C colours on proofs for natural papers such as PSOUncoatedV3: Here too we would send you a "data faulty" email, as we also often cannot achieve the coated colour values on our natural papers for proofs. A few examples:

Proof: ISOCoated V2 | Colours: PANTONE C / HKS K | Result: Perfect proofable and offset printable
Proof: ISOCoated V2 | Colours: PANTONE U / HKS N | Result: Difficult, since proofable but not offset printable
Proof: PSOUncoated V3 | Colours: PANTONE U / HKS N | Result: Perfect proofable and offset printable
Proof: PSOUncoated V3 | Colours: PANTONE C / HKS K | Result: Difficult, since mostly not proofable and not offset printable

When proofing spot colours, you should also note: With spot colours, we only have the respective solid tone, i.e. the 100% spot colour area stored in our proofing system. A 50% area of PANTONE 123 C or HKS 15 N would therefore be calculated by the proofing software, as no real, measured colour data for the 50% value is stored in our system. These values are calculated very intelligently by the proofing software, but are still only a clever calculation and not a simulation based on a metrologically recorded reference. The same applies when, for example, a spot colour is overprinted semi-transparently by another spot colour or by a CMYK image. 

Greyscale

We treat greyscale in PDF files as if they were on the black channel of the requested proof output colour space. A 50% grey is thus output as a 0/0/0/50 in CMYK, this applies to images in Device-Gray as well as to all other greyscale data in PDF files. Even if you do not send us PDFs, but pure TIFFs or JPEGs in greyscale, we would proceed in such a way that we treat them as the black channel of the requested output colour space. If we should output your TIFFs or JPEGs in grey profiles such as "Dot Gain 15%" or an "EPSON Gray Gamma 1.8" in these colour spaces or output them, for example, relatively colourmetrically to your requested output colour space, please let us know in the "Notes to your order" field, which you will find in the course of order processing.

proof papers

We proof on four certified paper types, two without optical brightening agents for "classic" and two proof papers with optical brightening agents for Fogra51/Fogra52 and Heaven42. All proof papers are certified by Fogra as proof substrates::

For the simulation of photo printing papers we use the Gravure Proof Paper from EFI at 245 g/m². It feels very high-quality and is also perfect for presentations to customers.
The 4245 is a coated universally applicable semi-matte and wipe-resistant paper. This proof paper, specially developed for offset and gravure printing, is compatible with paper types 1 and 2 of ISO 12647-2 and is largely without paper simulation for these papers. The EFI 4245 is certified as 4245 GRACoL/SWOP #3 and for the gravure printing area (S1 and S2) and for the offset printing area (PT3) the paper is also certified by FOGRA. 
 

    EFI Gravure Proof Paper 4245 Semi-matte:

• Semi-matte coated paper
• Very large colour space
• One-sided printable
• Very good fading behaviour
• Very low proportion of optical brightening agents
• Weight: 245 g/m²
• Thickness: 260 μ
• Opacity: 96%
• L*a*b paper white: 94.8 / 0.3 / -1.5

For those who need a proof for natural papers, we offer a proof on matte EFI 9120XF 120 g/m² paper. This proof paper contains virtually no optical brightening agents. The special colouring and the high L value are very suitable for the simulation of matte prints. It is perfect for simulating natural papers as it is very similar in feel and thickness to letter paper.
 

    EFI proof paper 9120XF matte

• Large colour space
• Slightly foldable
• Low proportion of optical brightening agents
• Weight: 120 g/m²
• Thickness: 150 μ
• Opacity: 95%
• Gloss: 6%
• L*a*b paper white: 96.7 / 0.2 / -2.4

The ECI (European Colour Initiative) states in its practical recommendation "Uncoated":
"Another special consideration should be taken into account when proofing for printing on uncoated paper: The semi-matte proof paper usually used for "coated" also results in poor visual proof-print agreement even with very good metrological results of the media wedge evaluation. The use of uncoated proof paper prepared for proof printers provides the best possible metrological agreement with the target values from the characterisation file and also provides the best possible visual agreement between proof and print."
http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=de:colorstandards:offset
 

proof papers with optical brightening agents (OBA)

EFI proof paper 8245 OBA semi-matte
For those who need a proof for photo printing papers with optical brightening agents, we offer a proof on semi-matte EFI 8245 OBA semi-matte at 245 g/m² paper. EFI proof paper 8245 OBA semi-matte was specially developed for proofing white and brightened, coated circulation papers. The white point of this semi-matte paper is very close to the values of the FOGRA51 profile and thus enables proofing according to FOGRA51 almost without paper white simulation. It is also well suited for simulating printing conditions PC1 according to ISO 12647-2:2013.
 

• Weight: 245 g/m²
• Thickness: 245 μm
• Opacity: > 95%
• Gloss: 22%
• CIE L*a*b* (M0): 95.8 | 0.9 | -4.3
• CIE L*a*b* (M1): 96.0 | 1.1 | -5.6

EFI proof paper 8175 OBA matte
For those who need a proof for natural papers with optical brightening agents, we offer a proof on matte EFI 7175 OBA matte at 175 g/m² paper. EFI proof paper 8175 OBA matte was specially developed for proofing uncoated, heavily brightened circulation papers. It is very well suited for proofing according to Fogra52.
 

• Weight: 175 g/m²
• Thickness: 230 μm
• Opacity: 97%
• Gloss: 5%
• CIE L*a*b* (M0): 96.8 | 2.5 | -7.7
• CIE L*a*b* (M1): 97.0 | 3.0 | -10.8

Both natural papers are FSC certified, the 8245OBA paper is PEFC certified.

If you have any questions about proofing, please feel free to contact us at any time.  

Phone: +49 (0) 7071-7952740 
Mon - Fri: 9:00 - 6:00 PM

• Which profile is right for me?
• How do I create the PDF file?
• How quickly can you dispatch it?
• ...?

Outside our business hours you can also send us an email with your questions at any time, which we will answer as quickly as possible: info@proof.de
We have compiled the most important questions here for you: Frequently asked questions about
You will also find a lot of knowledge about proofing, digital proofing, online proofing and colour proofing directly here: proof.de

Matthias Betz and the team from proof.de