Every maker keeps sheets they should have culled, because the only judge applied was a feeling. Feelings are generous after an hour at the press. A small, fixed proofing pass is stricter and faster: five checks, run the same way every time, against the tag spec you set before the session began. It takes under a minute a sheet, and it is the difference between a stack of keepers and a folder of maybes.
The five checks
1. Likeness. Is she the character on the tag spec — same hair, same face, same signature — or a near relative? Judge against the spec, not against the previous sheet, because drift compounds quietly when each sheet is only compared with its neighbour.
2. Hands. Hands first, then joints, then anything the pose bends. A sheet can survive soft detail; it cannot survive anatomy the eye trips over at thumbnail size.
3. Light. One source, behaving consistently across skin, fabric and background. Light that disagrees with itself is the most common reason a strong sheet feels vaguely off-register.
4. Edges. Hair against background, fingers against props, lace against skin. Clean edges are what let a sheet sit beside others in an edition without announcing how it was made.
5. Purpose. Does the sheet do the one job it was briefed for — the cover, the teaser, the quiet filler? A beautiful sheet that does the wrong job fails here, and rightly.
The threshold that saves money
Score each check out of two: fails, passes, strong. A sheet needs eight of ten to earn finishing spend — a correction at 21 credits, a plate job at 26, a finishing pass at 61. Below eight, the sheet goes back to the main press at the 6-credit standard cost, where correction is cheapest. The checks are not about being harsh; they are about spending the expensive credits only where the work already holds. Keep the scores with the edition, dated. A month later they will tell you which of your habits actually improved — noted, not remembered. Makers who proof honestly for a single month usually find the pattern quickly: one check, most often light or edges, accounts for nearly every culled sheet, and fixing that one habit lifts the whole run more than any new press setting ever will.