When a customer places an order and sends their artwork to our Aura Print pre-press team, it doesn’t just disappear into a magical print void where it gets fired through a series of print machines before arriving days later, with everyone banking on a positive outcome. If only!
Before an order gets anywhere near production, our amazing pre-press team checks the supplied files to make sure the artwork gives us exactly what we need to print, laminate, foil, cut, fold, drill, pack, and ship, with no unexpected hold-ups. Most of the time, these checks are pretty straightforward – the file size matches the print size ordered, the bleed is in check, the important details are tucked safely within the artwork, the front and back files are crystal clear, the foil layer has been separated from the print layer, and everyone can rub their hands together in anticipation of perfect print.
Sometimes, though, something in the artwork gives our pre-press team a reason to hit pause. That could be anything from missing bleed, a business card supplied at the wrong size, a foil layer that’s built into the print artwork, a die-cut bookmark with no cut path, a playing card deck with unclear quantities, or a beautifully understated wedding invitation where the border sits just a little too close to where Daz and the paper cutter are going to get involved.
When that happens, our pre-press team will temporarily pause the job while they reach out for clarification, minor fixes, or new files, always explaining what’s gone wrong, why, and how you (or we) can fix it. The last thing we want to do is wave off a job without being 100% certain that it will turn out exactly as you expect – and that’s what sets Aura Print apart.
This final piece in our artwork issues series is all about what happens during that bit of the process customers don’t always get to see. In our first study, we looked at the most common artwork problems we spotted across 501 real Aura Print orders. In the second, we looked at which product types appeared most often in those incorrect artwork records, from playing cards and business cards to custom invitations, leaflets, bookmarks, and stickers. In the penultimate blog, we highlighted specialist finishes such as metallic foil, die-cutting, and rounded corners, explaining why the shiny bits, custom-cut bits, and curved bits need to be made especially clear before the job reaches production.
Right now, though, you’re joining us as we look at what happens after our team spots an issue, because there is usually a whole lot more going on behind the scenes between “we’ve checked your artwork” and “your order is ready for print” than most customers would ever need to think about. There are detailed emails packed full of screenshots, foil and bleed setup guides, quantities being clarified, files being corrected, and sometimes a bit of paid design support being approved to get artwork into a safer place before it goes anywhere near Janet’s press, John’s die-cutting setup, or anyone else’s very capable but very real-world production hands.
It’s not the glamorous part of print, but pre-press is one of the most important stages your order will pass through. It’s where our pre-press experts catch avoidable print problems before they become finished print problems, and it’s also where the team gets the chance to help you, the customer, understand what might need changing, why it matters, and what the safest next step should be.
What Checking 501 Incorrect Artwork Records Taught Us
As part of this detailed artwork series, our team reviewed 501 real Aura Print orders where pre-press recorded an artwork issue before production could begin. We weren’t only interested in what had gone wrong with the files, although there was plenty to look at there, from setting up foil layers to bleed and cut paths, wrong sizes, unclear instructions, incompatible file types, and all the other little niggles we come across.
For this piece, we wanted to look at what happened after we spotted the issue, because artwork problems are often talked about as if they are the end of the road, when in reality, most of them are a momentary pause in the process while someone checks, explains, corrects, advises, or gives the customer a chance to send over a new file. A file not being quite print-ready doesn’t mean the order is doomed; it just means we have questions before production can go ahead at the standard we always strive for.
Throughout the incorrect artwork files we looked at, the most common next step for our pre-press team was asking the customer to resupply or correct their artwork, which happened in 175 cases, or 34.9% of the artwork issue records. That might sound like a lot, but it makes sense when you remember that some things just need to come from the customer, especially if the file is the wrong size, missing part of the design, supplied without the correct front or back, or needs a proper foil layer, cut path, higher-resolution version, updated file, or clearer set of instructions before we can safely move the order forward.
We also asked customers for clarification in 95 cases, which made up 19.0% of the records, and gave bleed instructions in 78 cases, or 15.6%. Screenshots or visual references were sent to customers in 50 cases, while guides, blogs, or setup resources were sent in 44. In other words, a large chunk of the work was not just “your artwork is wrong, please try again”, because that would be neither helpful nor very Aura of us. A lot of it was our team explaining what needed changing or pointing them towards the right setup advice so they could get the order moving again without having to guess what a printer means by bleed, safe zone, cut path, foil layer, or any of the other artwork file setup jargon we occasionally forget is not part of everyone’s everyday lexicon.
There were also cases where the fix needed a little more hands-on support. Our pre-press team amended or helped correct artwork in 50 cases, while paid design time was used in 33, and in a smaller number of records, the customer chose to proceed as-is, approve the risk, opt for a refund, partially refund, or amend the order. None of those outcomes are especially glamorous, but they are part of the real pre-press process, and they show why checking artwork before print matters so much, because sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is not immediately print what has been sent, but stop, analyze, and say, “This might not come out how you expect. Can we check it with you first?”
The Step Between Sending Artwork and Going to Print
Not everyone knows what is meant by pre-press, but it’s simple really: before your artwork goes into production, someone needs to check whether the file is ready to become a real printed thing, not just a nice-looking PDF or a design that looks good on-screen. It is the point between artwork being supplied and production beginning, where someone needs to decide whether the file is optimized for print.
We’re not talking about picking holes in your design or trying to make print feel more complicated than it needs to be; we’re simply looking at orders and asking, “Do we have enough information to produce this properly?” Most of the time, the answer is yes, and the job can carry on through proofing and production with no fuss. In roughly one in ten orders during the period we reviewed, the answer was nearly, but not quite, and that is where the pre-press team stepped in with a question, a screenshot, a setup guide, a bleed explanation, or a request for corrected files.
This is the part customers don’t know an awful lot about, because why should they? In cases where intervention is needed before print, customers will generally receive an email or phone call from a member of our pre-press team requesting clarification or corrections. As inconvenient as it might seem at the time, that small pause can mean the difference between perfect print and print with wonky foil, a border appearing too tight, or a multi-design order being produced with the wrong quantity split. We check in because we want your print to be perfect.
That is why this is less about listing every possible artwork issue and more about what happens if we spot one. In some cases, the customer just needs to send us an updated version of the file. In others, we need to clarify what they meant before we make an assumption we shouldn’t be making. Sometimes we can explain the problem with a screenshot or point them towards a guide, and sometimes the artwork needs a bit of design time before it is safe to print. There are also occasions where the best outcome is not to push ahead at all, but to change the order or let the customer approve the risk, having been made aware of it.
That might sound like a lot of tiny admin steps, but it is really the difference between treating print like a blind upload system and treating it like a proper production process. We would much rather catch the issue at this stage, while the job is still a file on-screen, than after paper, stock, foil, ink, machine time, and packing time have already been used.
When We Asked Customers to Resupply or Correct Their Files
The biggest group in our support data was customers being asked to either correct or resupply their artwork, which made up just over a third of the 501 issue records. That might sound like a bit of a headache, because nobody sends us a file expecting to be asked for another one, but in print terms it is often the cleanest and safest fix.
As amazing as they are, there are some things our pre-press team simply cannot guess, rebuild, or tidy without changing the customer’s design. If the artwork is the wrong size, the finished print could end up cropped, stretched, or just not looking quite right. If a front or back file is missing, we need to know whether the order needs to be single-sided, whether a second side has been forgotten, or whether the missing file is sitting somewhere in the customer’s folder under a name that made perfect sense at 11pm but is hard for our team to identify the following morning. If a foil layer, cut path, or higher-resolution file has not been supplied, there is often no sensible way for production to continue until the correct version arrives.
We’re not trying to make people jump through hoops – we just want to make sure we’ve got a strong starting point. A corrected file can be the difference between forcing a compromise into production and giving the job a proper chance to come out as intended. It also avoids our team making assumptions that might feel harmless at the file-checking stage but become very obvious once the print has been trimmed, foiled, folded, packed, and delivered.
If you’re asked to re-supply your files, our pre-press team will do their best to provide you with as much guidance as possible, but if you’re still not quite sure, we’ll always do our very best to help.
When We Just Needed a Clearer Answer
Not every pause means we need you to resupply your files. In many cases, the artwork supplied is perfectly workable, but we don’t have all the information we need to put together your proof.
It might be that you have ordered and sent us multiple business card designs but forgot to tell us how the quantity should be split between each name. It could be that a playing card order includes different fronts, backs, or repeat cards, but the file names don’t make it completely obvious what belongs where. It might be that your email contains two artwork files, but you only ordered a single-design batch of single-sided flyers. You get the drift, right?
In those situations, the last thing we want to do is guess. We might be able to make an educated assumption, and sometimes the answer might seem obvious; for example, one might assume that 1,000 business cards split across 5 designs would equal 200 copies of each, but what if it’s actually 600 copies for the business owner and 100 for each of her employees? That would be a pretty awkward mistake on our part!
Because of this, “seemingly obvious” isn’t concrete enough when the customer has made payment and any assumption we make is about to be printed, finished, trimmed, and shipped. If we assume the orientation of a double-sided abstract art piece, split a multi-name order incorrectly, use the wrong version of a file, or set up a design in a way the customer didn’t actually mean, the finished print might match our interpretation of the order, but not the one the customer had in mind when they placed the order.
That’s why a quick email or phone call to clarify your order specifics is the best next step when something isn’t completely clear. It keeps the order moving without forcing you, the customer, to redesign anything and gives our team the one missing piece of information they need before the artwork becomes a proof, a print file, and eventually a real stack of finished prints on the production floor.
If you’re ordering with a strict deadline in mind and can’t risk pre-press pauses, we suggest including as much information as possible in your artwork email. If you think there’s even the slightest risk of your files or order setup being misconstrued or not being immediately obvious to us, there’s no such thing as “too much information”. Make sure you’re telling us which file is the front, which file is the back, how your multi-design order should be split, and anything else you think our team might need to know before setting up your proof. A couple of extra sentences can save several emails, which is a win-win!
When a Screenshot Says It Better Than a Paragraph
There are also times when trying to explain an artwork issue in words alone makes the whole thing seem more complicated than it really is, especially when we’re throwing around terms like bleed, trim lines, safe zones, cut paths, foil layers, and all the other print terms that make perfect sense to our pre-press team, but quite reasonably mean very little to someone who doesn’t spend their working week checking artwork files.
And honestly, we don’t expect our customers to know this stuff. That’s our job.
Between them, our pre-press and design team have decades of combined experience and multiple degrees across different areas of design and pre-press, so when they open a file and spot something that might cause production hiccups, they’re looking at it through years of training, experience, proofing, problem-solving, and real print jobs. Most customers don't order print every day, and even if they are brilliant designers, artists, business owners, or marketers, that doesn’t automatically mean they know exactly what we need for a production-ready file.
That’s why screenshots and visual references are such a useful part of the process. Instead of sending an email full of print jargon and expecting a customer to decode it, our team will mark up the actual area we’re worried about and explain it in plain English. If something is too close to the edge, we can show you where. If bleed is missing, we can explain why it’s important and which bit needs extending. If a foil layer has been supplied as part of the print artwork instead of as a separate file, we can show what we mean rather than expecting the customer to know how a foil setup should look.
We’ll never just send you a “your artwork isn’t right” message. It’ll always be “this is the specific part we’re concerned about, this is why it matters, and this is what we need you to change before we can safely move forward.”
And if an annotated screenshot still doesn’t quite make sense, that’s fine too. Our designers are always happy to hop on a call and talk customers through what needs changing, because we would never expect someone to become a print expert for the sake of a single invitation order. We’re the ones who know the production side, the artwork quirks, and the little file setup details that can make a big difference, so our job is to make that knowledge useful, not intimidating.
For customers, an annotated screenshot can be the difference between feeling completely stuck and knowing exactly what to fix, and how to fix it. For our team, it means fewer assumptions and less back-and-forth. And for the finished print, which is the bit we all actually care about, it means the file has a much better chance of reaching production with everyone on the same page.
When Bleed Advice Saves the Edges
Bleed is one of those print terms that makes total sense to someone who knows the ins and outs of setting up artwork for print, but until then, it can sound like we’re asking for revised artwork for no reason. The short version is this: if your design runs right to the edge of the finished print, we need a little extra artwork extending beyond the trim line so there is something for the trimmer to cut into.
Without the extra area, even tiny movement during trimming can leave thin white edges around the finished piece, which is not ideal if the customer has ordered a rich full-color background, a photograph, a pattern, or anything else that is meant to run neatly to the edge of the print. It is one of those details that can look fine in a PDF preview, because the preview shows the tidy finished shape, but production has to deal with paper, stock, trimming, finishing, and the real world rather than the neat little box on your screen.
When our team gives bleed advice, it’s usually because the artwork is close, but not quite safe enough to send through as it is. The design might look finished, and in many ways it might be, but once the job is printed, stacked, trimmed, and finished, there needs to be enough artwork past the cut edge for Daz and the trimmer to do their thing without leaving behind tiny white slivers where the design was supposed to run cleanly off the page.
This is also why we won’t always just “stretch it a bit” from our side, even when that sounds like the quickest fix. If the edge of the artwork is a plain color, we may be able to help in some cases, but if it includes a photo, illustration, pattern, border, background detail, or anything that has clearly been designed to sit a certain way, stretching or rebuilding it ourselves could change the artwork in a way the customer hasn’t approved. At that point, the safest thing for us to do is explain what’s missing, show where the bleed needs to extend, and ask for a corrected file so the finished print still looks like the design the customer actually had in mind.
It can feel like a tiny detail when you’re looking at the file, but missing bleed is exactly the sort of tiny detail that becomes very visible once it has been printed and trimmed. A tiny bit of extra artwork around the edge can be the difference between a clean, professional edge and a finished product that looks like it has accidentally been given a skinny white frame, which is not usually the grand vision when someone has ordered a full-color flyer, invitation, bookmark, business card, or anything else designed to make it all the way to the edge.
When Artwork Needs a Bit More Help
Every now and then, an artwork issue needs more than a quick explanation or a new file from the customer. Sometimes the idea is there, the design is almost there, but the file itself needs a bit of proper hands-on time from someone who knows how to get print-ready artwork without accidentally changing the whole look and feel of it.
That is where our design service can come in. In some cases, our team might be able to make a small internal amendment, but in others, especially if artwork needs rebuilding, resizing, tidying, setting up properly for foil or die-cutting, adjusting for bleed, or preparing in a way that takes more than a quick pre-press note, we may recommend paid design time before the order goes any further. This is never about upselling for the sake of it; it’s about making sure your artwork is print-ready.
And sometimes, that little bit of design help is the difference between a file that costs you time by bouncing back and forth and a file that finally works for production. Nobody wants to be stuck in artwork limbo, least of all our pre-press team, who would much rather get your job moving than keep asking for version seven of a file called “final-final-new-newest”.
When the Order Itself Needs Changing
There are occasions where the answer is not a corrected file, a screenshot, or a bit of design time, but a change to the order itself. That might mean changing the size, removing a finish, adjusting the quantity, changing the paper type, approving a known risk, partially refunding something that can’t be produced as supplied, or cancelling the order in the unfortunate circumstance that it cannot go ahead in a way that makes sense.
That might sound dramatic, but it’s sometimes the fairest, or only, option. If the artwork supplied will not work with the product that has been ordered, or if the customer no longer wants to amend the file, it is much better for us to be upfront about that before we use stock, machine time, finishing time, and packing time on something we’re not certain will result in the customer's ideal outcome.
We never want to make those calls feel cold or transactional. If an order needs changing, the aim is still the same as it is with every other pre-press pause: explain the issue clearly, give the customer their options, and help them choose the route that makes the most sense for their artwork, deadline, budget, and finished print.
Why Checking Before Print Matters
This is why we keep coming back to pre-press throughout this whole series. It’s a part of the print process many customers know very little about, and often don’t even realize exists, yet it’s where a lot of finished print problems are quietly and expertly prevented.
A quick email, an annotated screenshot, a corrected file, a bleed explanation, a design-time recommendation, or even an order change can feel like a small delay at the time, but those small pauses are often what protect the finished result. Once a job has been printed, foiled, drilled, folded, cut, packed, and shipped, the opportunity to fix the file is gone. At that point, the artwork is no longer just artwork; it’s a physical product sitting in someone’s hands.
So if our team pauses your order, please don’t see it as us being awkward, fussy, or difficult. See it as someone at Aura Print taking the time to make sure your file is properly understood before it becomes finished print, because we would always rather ask one extra question before production than send out something that makes you wish we had.
Not Sure If Your Artwork Is Print-Ready?
If you’re not sure whether your artwork is ready for print, that’s exactly what our pre-press team is here for. Send your files over once your order has been placed, include any notes that might help us understand what you’re trying to achieve, and we’ll check everything before production begins.
If something needs changing, we’ll let you know. If we need a clearer file, we’ll ask. If a screenshot, guide, phone call, or a bit of design time would help, we’ll point you in the right direction. And if everything looks good, perfect – your order can carry on through proofing and production uninterrupted.
Because print-ready artwork doesn’t mean you need to know everything we know. It just means the file gives our team enough information to make the finished print properly, and if it doesn’t quite do that yet, we’ll help you work out the safest next step.
