Photo Quality Test Page
Print gradients and skin tones for photo output.
Print settings
Print this on the paper you normally use, then examine each section. What a healthy result looks like is described above each pattern on the sheet.
RunTheTests Photo Quality Test Page · print at 100% · plain paper
Banding check — smooth gradients (look for steps or lines)
Skin tones
Colour bars
How this test page works
Skin tones and gradients are the hardest things for a printer to reproduce, so they are the best test of photo output — natural skin and smooth gradients mean the printer and profile are set up well.
What the results mean
- Skin tones
- The most unforgiving colours. A green or orange cast here means the colour profile or paper setting is off.
Common problems and fixes
- Prints are consistently darker than the screen
- The usual cause is a bright monitor rather than a faulty printer. A screen emits light and a print reflects it, so a display set near maximum brightness will always promise more than paper delivers. Reduce screen brightness to around 100 to 120 cd/m² before judging, and view prints under decent light.
- Skin tones come out orange or green
- Almost always the paper setting. The driver chooses ink limits and colour handling from the paper type, so glossy photo paper printed with a plain-paper profile lands well off. Set the exact paper you loaded, disable any auto-enhance, and reprint before changing anything in the image itself.
- Gradients show visible steps or a colour shift
- Banding in a gradient is a nozzle or feed symptom rather than a colour one — run the banding test to confirm. A gradient that shifts hue across its length instead points at colour management, usually two profiles fighting: turn off colour management in either the application or the driver, never both at once.
Frequently asked questions
My photos print too dark or with a colour cast
Set the correct paper profile in the driver and turn off any auto-enhancement for a true test. Photo printing is very sensitive to the paper-type setting matching the actual paper.
Why are skin tones the hardest test?
Because everyone knows what they should look like. A landscape can be several percent off in any direction and still read as correct, while a face that is slightly green or orange is obvious to anyone. They also sit in a part of the colour space where small errors in the cyan and magenta balance show most.
Do I need photo paper for this test?
For a meaningful result, yes. Plain paper cannot hold the ink load or the black density that photographic output depends on, so a photo test on plain stock tells you almost nothing about photo quality. Use the paper you intend to print on, and set the driver to match it.