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Reference Print
In order to assist you in receiving the best prints from your digital files, you may need to adjust your monitor slightly.  While most customers don't need to do this, some may.  Regardless, it should serve to improve your prints printed by Advantage One. 

To download the reference image: (It's a 1.5 Mb file. If you have a dial-up connection, it may take a few minutes to download).  Right Click on the image to the left and  choose "Save Target As".  When the "Save As" window comes up, select where you would like the image to be saved to. For example: "My Pictures".

Instructions for using Advantage One Reference Image.

For best results, you will need one of our reference prints to compare to the image you see on your screen.  You can pick one of these up for free at the lab.  However you may be just fine viewing the downloaded image on your screen as mentioned in the next paragraph.

Density-
We have found that most of the time, the issue is that prints look darker or lighter than what the customer sees on their computer monitor. Most people seem to have their monitors set a bit on the light and contrasty side, resulting in a dark print. Using the Gray Scale along the lower part of the image (see below), once you have down loaded and are viewing the Reference Print on your screen, you should be able to see the difference in the gray tonal values of each block except for numbers 0 and 1, and numbers 19 and 20. If you don’t, you try adjusting the brightness and/or contrast of your monitor. 

Color-
The colors should look similar to the card. If it’s not perfect, don’t sweat it, it may not be an issue. If it seems to be way off, consult the help menu for your graphics card to see if there is anything that can be done. Be aware though that factors such as room lighting or color, and even the color shirt you are wearing can affect how colors look on your monitor.

The monitors at Advantage One have been optimized with our professional printers. Most people don’t have the software to do this at home. This simple test should get you reasonably close to calibrating your screen with our printers.

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