The following case study may give you insight into options for proofing offset custom printing jobs, whether they be digests, books, catalogs, magazines, or any other signature work. For that matter, I think even smaller jobs like fold-over cards, brochures, and such, might benefit from this proofing workflow.
I recently designed a print book of poems for a local writer, and a print book of flower photographs for a local photographer. In an attempt to solicit more design work from another potential client, I considered emailing the prospective client PDF samples of the two books I had just completed. After all, I considered this akin to showing a digital portfolio, just as I used to open my physical portfolio and display printed copies of my design work. Fortunately, I paused before acting. I then sent emails to both the poet and the photographer asking permission to share their work.
First of all, I misspoke.
A PIE Blog reader just brought to my attention that the price Politics and Prose charges for a single print book produced on Opus, their Espresso book printing machine, is not, as I had noted, $8.00 for 200 pages plus $2.00 for every additional hundred or fewer pages. This is just for “public domain” titles.
The “originality” of a fine art large-format print is of prime concern to artists, and sometimes even more so to art distributors such as galleries, and art fair and art festival sponsors. The value of a work of art depends on its originality and limited nature, but in this era of computers, scanners, and inkjet printers it is relatively easy to digitize an original and create an unlimited number of copies.
An independent bookstore in Washington, DC, called Politics and Prose has installed a new book-making machine (Espresso Book Machine) that poses a number of profound implications for print books. This machine can produce a paperback book of between 40 and 800 pages, in a multiplicity of sizes up to 8” x 10.5”, with most print books ready in four to ten minutes, for a cost of $8.00 for 200 pages plus $2.00 for every additional hundred—or fewer--pages.
If you research the term “lamination” online, in print books, or by talking with commercial printers, you'll see that the concept has two distinct meanings.