Test Prints and why they matter

A new test print arrived on my doorstep yesterday from Whitewall, the print lab I entrust with my fine art prints.

As a well seasoned photographer, I know that checking an image in its printed form is one of the most important things you can do.

What you see on screen on your phone or your laptop can appear very different on paper, and that's because every different type of paper and every different type of monitor will display the characteristics of an image a little differently. These differences in what we call the colour gamut can mean that without checking, what a photographer sees on screen can be really different to what he sees on paper.

There are various reasons for this - one is what is known as colour temperature - if you have an iphone and you have night mode on, you'll realise your phone has an orange/yellow tint to it. The same is true of an LED lightbulb vs. a traditional bulb - they have different colour temperatures.

On top of that, photographic prints can display billions of subtle colours, whereas a monitor has a much more limited gamut, and if you export your images in the wrong type, well, they can look absolutely terrible!

So, this is an aspect of quality, I've always taken incredibly seriously. I use a tool called a colorimeter to make sure my monitor is calibrated correctly, and then use a method called 'soft proofing' to ensure that by simulating the exact photo paper I am going to be using, what I see on paper is as close as possible to the image I see on screen.

Finally, with the test print, I use a "daylight" lamp to check the print. This allows me to see the true colours under a controlled light source.

I can tell with this type of paper that the colours have real punch, the print is slightly more contrasty on paper than it is on screen, but it looks great.