October 18, 2022

Your Guide to Reviewing Art Proofs

Our suite of top-of-the-line production machinery and technology includes Lift, a software system that enables us to automate and manage processes such as client art proof approval. Through the link that we send you, you can approve, reject, or completely cancel art directly in our system. This reduces the amount of time it takes to review your proofs, meaning that your graphics will get to our presses, and to you, faster. You’ll also be able to access a detailed report with more information about what is being produced (including quantity, size, shipping address, etc.) and higher-resolution images of your art.
Note: We also have the availability to create client logins in Lift. Within this dashboard, clients can look up old orders, place new ones, see the production stage of each graphic following proof approval (ex: printing, cutting, finishing, packing, shipping, etc.), and look up shipping tracking information once your graphics have left our shop. If you're interested in taking advantage of this capability, please reach out to your Infinity Images project manager.
This blog post will outline how to use our approval system, from receiving the email with a link for proof approval to downloading detailed reports and what to do if you need to reject the proof and supply new art. Let's dive in!

 

EMAIL NOTIFICATION 

When your proofs are ready for approval, you’ll receive an email from notifications@infinityimages.com with a subject line reading “Infinity Images Proof Approval – Order #A0123456” (the order number will be unique to each project). The email will include your order number, the project title, and a View Proof button. Click the View Proof button when you’re ready to review your proofs, and you will be directed to our portal in your default browser. While Google Chrome is the recommended browser for our ERP system Lift, all of the major browsers (Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge) are also supported.
The link can be used as many times as you need and doesn’t expire until you approve the proofs. You may forward or share the email with colleagues for their use as well. Note that they will also be able to approve or reject the proofs. If there are multiple decision-makers, we suggest having a single person designated to approve the proofs so that your team doesn’t accidentally approve them before everyone has had a chance to review them!

PROOF APPROVAL PORTAL

Below is an example of the proof approval portal landing page. At the top is some general information about your order, including the order number, status, and the Infinity Images project manager who created the order in our system. There are also buttons to reject all of the proofs at once, and to download all of the proof images.

The lower section displays cards with your proof images, as well as general details about each item in your order. In between these two sections is a toolbar with options for what information you’d like to be displayed. No matter what type of display you choose, there will be a download icon next to the file name, which will download the JPG proof image to your computer. There is also a Detailed Report button that you can click to download a detailed proof report that will show technical colors and other information about the graphic.
  1. Approve by Image – This is the default view and shows the quantity to be produced, the line number, and the file name.
  2. Approve by Detail – This view will show the print dimensions and product name (material/substrate) in addition to the quantity, line number, and file name.
  3. Approve by Ship To – This view will show the shipping address for each graphic in addition to the quantity, line number, and file name.
  4. Approve by Detail and Ship To – This view will show the information from the Detail and Ship To options in addition to the default information. We recommend that you review proofs in this display since it includes the most information about your graphics. Note that if you would like to review colors and image quality, you will need to request a physical, printed proof.

 

APPROVING PROOFS

Approving proofs is as simple as clicking on the green Approve button on the card of the graphic you are approving. Once you do so, the graphic will disappear from your view so you’re only looking at the proofs that are still awaiting your approval.
You can also click on the Approve w/note button, to attach a note to the order line with your approval. This should not be used to request changes. If you need changes to be made, please select one of the reject reasons covered below.
 

REJECTING PROOFS 

The red Reject button should be used if the art is not correct, whether it’s because you need to send us new art, want to make a change to the layout, or have changed your mind altogether and don’t want that graphic to be produced. Each of these reasons will require different actions, covered below. For all of them, the first step is clicking the red Reject button.

 

Reject Reason: Reject, will send revised art

This is the default rejection reason and should be used if you want to change the art to be produced. When you select this reason, you also have the option to provide a “Disapprove Comment” which will be attached to the order line.
 

After you have done that, the card will remain on the screen, but there will now be a Revised Art Needed button, as shown below.

Clicking on this button will allow you to provide a link to the new art, or to upload it directly to our system. Once uploaded to our system, it will be automatically sent to our prepress department.

Reject Reason: Reject, art will not be used

If you are canceling the order line or would like changes to be made to the art we already have, select this reason. Again, you have the option to add a “Disapprove Comment” that will be attached to the order line.

As shown above, there are two options for this rejection reason. The first, Send back to Artist, allows you to request Infinity Images make changes to the art file we already have using the disapprove comment field. The second option, Cancel this line, will cancel that order line. Note that once a line has been canceled, it will have to be recreated by your Infinity Images project manager if you would like to produce that graphic after all. 
 
While automation of this process reduces some direct email communication with your Infinity Images project manager, they will remain appraised of all project approval statuses. And, if you have any questions or would like to speak with your project manager directly at any time, they’d love to chat. We appreciate your partnership as we work towards continuing to streamline and speed up our production process so that we can get you your graphics, faster!

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