You can use this print and the associated image file from which it was made (both available on request) to verify your colour management set-up, in particular the part that we play in it. You can even use these to assist in monitor calibration. You’ll find links below to additional resource pages which you should refer to if you don’t understand.

Verifying your colour management

Our Monitor Test Image is a composite of several images reflecting colour values of particular importance to portrait and wedding photographers – landscapes, blue skies, facial colours, the delicacy of bridal dresses and so on. It also includes several colour swatches to assist in calibration, which we’ll deal with later.

The print was printed at our lab on our machinery using the same image file that you’ll find on our CD-ROM, named Queensberry.TIF (pictured above)

It follows that if you have Queensberry.TIF open in Photoshop, the image you see on screen should closely match the printed image provided that:

1. Your (high quality) monitor is accurately calibrated (click here)
2. The monitor profile created during calibration is active and you have Photoshop's colour settings set up as we recommend: Mac Windows
3. You have our QBYLustre printer profile selected under View > Proof Setup (click here)
4. You have Proof Colours turned on (View > Proof Colours is checked)

Open the file "Queensberry.TIF" on the CD. To display the CD image on your monitor, Photoshop uses the “source” profile embedded in the file to convert to “lab colour”, and then applies the monitor’s profile (the “output profile”) to display the same colours on screen. (Click here for an explanation of colour management.)

Since the printed Monitor Test Image was made from the file Queensberry.TIF, the colours should match reasonably closely provided everything is done correctly under points 1-4 above. If so, you’re set.

If the screen and print don’t match

If the screen image and print don’t match we know that at least one of the conditions in the chain isn’t holding. We can’t calibrate your monitor for you, or for that matter fix the ambient lighting in your studio, but we can certainly help regular clients understand the other issues (points 2-4 above).

You should start by reviewing these resource pages (not to mention Photoshop’s excellent help resources) to get them right.

Soft proofing

Once you have confidence in your colour management set-up you’ll have confidence in the notion of “soft proofing” (ie previewing an image on screen as it will appear when we print it). It’s not likely to be something you (or we) want to do very often, but it’s a lot better than trial and error as a way to establish your colour preferences.

Click here for more about soft-proofing.

Using the Monitor Test Image to calibrate your monitor

We strongly recommend calibration using a colorimeter, which will deliver very accurate results from a high-quality, stable monitor.

Click here for monitor calibration using a colorimeter.

Anything other than a colorimeter is second best, but you can calibrate your monitor to a reasonable degree of accuracy using the Monitor Test Image, as follows. (The method depends on monitor controls that your monitor may not possess. If so you may need to try another method, such as Macintosh’s built-in ColorSync utility.)

By the way, this procedure will probably be quite good enough to calibrate your projector, which needs to display your images to good effect but plays no part in proofing or correcting colour. Of course you’ll need a brand with the appropriate controls built in, but if they are, this procedure works well.

Do not proceed until you have set up Photoshop colour settings as described elsewhere in these resources.

First, open the Viewing image Queensberry.TIF on the CD.

Then, to see how this image will appear when printed on Lustre paper, go to View > Proof setup and choose <Queensberry Lustre> from the bottom of the list (where “Queensberry Lustre” is the name we gave our proof set-up - click here).

Having selected a proofing profile you can now toggle back and forth between viewing the image in the document’s own colour space and the proofing colour space by selecting the second item on the menu (View > Proof Colours). A shortcut way is to press <Apple><Y> on Macintosh or <Ctrl><Y> on Widows.

When you’re viewing the image in proof colour mode the name at the top of the image window will change from “Queensberry.TIF @ xx% RGB/8” to “Queensberry.TIF @ xx% RGB/8/Queensberry Lustre”. This confirms that you’re viewing the image as a soft proof (mimicking the way the image will look when printed) and also shows which proof profile is being applied.

As we said above, if you have profiled your monitor using a colorimeter the image on the screen should now look like the supplied printed image.

Assuming the screen and printed images don’t match, you can calibrate your monitor by eye, as follows:

1. Initially set your monitor controls to maximum contrast and minimum brightness.
2. Looking at the white square at the top of the image set the Contrast so that the circle in the middle of the white square is just visible.



3. Repeat this with the black square at the bottom left, but this time use the Brightness control so that you can just see the black circle in the middle of the square.



4. You should now be able to see a full range of black steps on the left hand edge of the image, ranging from black to white.
5. You can now set the colour.

Most monitors will have two settings that affect the colour.

a) First you can try to set the colour temperature to 6500 deg K (D65) if your monitor front panel controls have this setting. If the display looks correct then you have finished setting up the monitor.

b) If it is not correct and you have a setting under colour called “user” then select this and change the individual settings for Red, Green and Blue. You will need to practice changing these settings until you find a combination that gives the correct look to the white squares on the screen. The background at the top of the image is a 25% neutral grey. Make sure when you alter the colours that the grey stays neutral.

c) You can now make minor adjustments to the colour channels to correct the colours in the image so that the screen matches the test print. This will be a compromise between getting the colour correct and keeping the white and grey neutral. (Using a colorimeter removes this restriction as each colour is controlled separately).

We emphasise again that this is a distant second best to using a colorimeter.