Test Prints - Sample Images - Use to test your paper and your printer!

[Nifty]

All,

I've uploaded a few images for you to use to test your printers, paper, ink, etc.

If you have other samples, please email them to me.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/gallery/sample-images


Great PDF for testing color on inkjet:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/images/colorkey.pdf

Great PDF for testing B/W and grayscale on inkjet or laser printers:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/images/laserkey.pdf

 

[canonfodder]

Rob, O.K. on the downloads.

Rob, Grandad35, whoever,

I am puzzled by a color thing. I have been looking at color samples of various sorts and I decided to make a simple bar with six boxes including RGBCMY. There are some like that around.

Working with Photo Studio, I have swatches of pure red, green, and blue, and I constructed swatches of cyan, magenta, and yellow by mixing the others.

Here I got confused. I thought that yellow was equal portions of red and green, magenta was equal portions of red and blue, and cyan was equal portions of green and blue. My colors were made by entering a 255 value for each color used and 0 for the unused. They looked fine, but then I noticed that some other swatches available didn't really look the same. I went into PhotoShop and checked their swatches and found that the makeup of C, M, and Y was not in equal values of the two primaries, but was unbalanced. Yellow was a little out of balance with neither up to value 255, and the other two are quite unbalanced in the values of the two colors.

I corrected my color swatches, but when I used PhotoShop to construct the values used to paint the swatches, a re-sampling of the new swatches did not yield the values I had just made up to "paint" with. They were noticably off in the values. That is puzzling. Perhaps I should not be asking PhotoShop to help me construct my ideal swatch set file.

I am also puzzeled, or at least curious, as to how the colors became defined with the values as they are. Why isn't cyan exactly half way between blue and green, etc.?

 

[Grandad35]

canonfodder,

This IS a very confusing subject, and your questions are valid ones. Unfortunately, the answers aren't simple and you need to read a book to really understand what is happening (http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Co...1/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0000614-4603121?ie=UTF8).

It all has to do with the limitations of the gamut of your working color space, and the inability of that color space to handle the full range of colors. The color numbers that you enter are only meaningful relative to the color space in which they are entered - they are not "absolute" color values. When you enter a C/M/Y value, it is converted (using SWOP {Specifications for Web Offset Publications}, I believe) to your working color space. Because SWOP isn't a large color space and sRGB is also a small color space that doesn't overlap SWOP very well, severe "clipping" can occur during this translation. For example while working in sRGB, selecting 0/100/0/0 for C/M/Y/K gives 236/0/140 for R/G/B. While working in aRGB, the same C/Y/M/K input values give RGB values of 202/0/136. Note that the color values in aRGB are smaller - meaning that this color space has more "headroom" to generate more saturated colors. Confusing - absolutely. If you want to really understand all of this, you'll have to read the book.

I PM'd you several images created in different color spaces to illustrate. You will have to open them in their native color spaces in PS to see the differences - do not convert them to sRGB, or the differences will "wash out". This is why I didn't bother to post the comparisons - most people use sRGB (the default) and won't be able to see any differences.

 

[canonfodder]

Grandad35,

I do thank you for helping me along toward understanding. I've gotten a short distance there, but it is probably a very important short distance. So far, in working with color swatches made from an ink, I was wondering why the swatch color seemed pretty far from some sample which I observed on my monitor, and closer to some other sample I might retrieve. Now I see that different standards might be involved.

I'm not sure that I really want to go into color in the depth enabled by the book. With a moderate understanding, perhaps I should align myself with my real goal of getting correct color on my equipment. It is not the purchase of the book, rather the fear of a time-consuming diversion. I detour easily.

The maker of ink should have the goal of duplicating the OEM ink which he is trying to replace. Perfection in that may be too much to expect. The forum has taught me that my desire for good results from an after-market ink and paper will be best realized by a profile and its correct application.

 

[Grandad35]

The forum has taught me that my desire for good results from an after-market ink and paper will be best realized by a profile and its correct application.

That's the best/easiest route for most people.

I also get detoured easily, but I found the subject so interesting that I took the long, scenic road. It's a very technical subject, something that is interesting to an engineer.

 

[thanhhuy123]

I contribute mine:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dlexbzoztu9c5se/FqX2_HvYUC/printer_clean_pdf

 

[Nifty]

Fantastic!!!

Good job!

 

[thanhhuy123]

Thanks! Although many of them are not for printer calibration but the monitor, however I see it's still useful for the printer as well

There is a greyscale picture which people can use to test their printer ability to produce exact "gray". Printed on my printer will barely acceptable result, however!