Often proofs are unique and very different from the final printed edition. The terms working proof or trial proof describe the impressions pulled in the development of a print. Finally, after all of the adjustments are made, the printer or printshop makes the print. It means that the edition may be printed. As the edition is printed, the prints are numbered.
Most workshops destroy the printing surface after the edition is printed.
Many times a printshop will mark the prints it produces with a stamp, the printshop's chop. Some printers also have their own stamps, thus some prints will have two chops. Finally, the artist signs the prints in the edition, certifying that they are his or her work. The quantity of numbered impressions in an edition is usually decided by the artist and the printshop before the edition is printed. At the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, a world-renowned center of training, research and publishing of fine art lithography, the number is rarely more than fifty and often considerably smaller.