Photography: Testcard

Testcard

A while ago I needed a testcard with a grayscale to test the lightmeter of one of my cameras and calibrate two cameras. Since I couldn't find a testcard in the local shops, I decided to make one myself. With a program like Paintshop or Photoshop this is very easy.

Top and bottom are greyscales ranging from pure white to pure black in 11 steps. The colors in the middle are the basic colors of RGB and CMY. The first row in full color. The second row are the same colors but in a lighter tone. I e-mailed the file of the testcard to a photolab which made a digital print for me. Since the print is digital, the colors are as I intended them to be. I use this now card for testing film or cameras. Of course you can use other colors and patterns as well, but I would advice to keep the greyscales and at least the primary RGB and CMY colors.

The file I sent to the photolab to be printed, was of course much larger than the one shown on the left. (It measures 2400x3600 pixels) I have put it on my site as well. Since some pc's might not be able to display such a large file in a browser, it is advised to download the file to your own pc first. Then open it again with a program like PaintShop or PhotoShop. To download the file, rightclick on the link and choose the "Save Target" option. Rightclick here to download the large version of this testcard.