Image Accuracy

Why images look the way they do?

Computers use many types of display devices, CRT's, LCD's, and plasma screens, to name a few, all produced by many companies. And the internet has yet to set a standard for representing color, tone and value, such that images on one display will look the same as those on another display. An image may look different on different display devices. In addition, each person sees color, tone and value differently. When looking at a computer display there are additional factors that may come into play like room lighting in your display viewing area.

Is the image accurate in color, tone and value?

We understand that color, tone and value are important things to our customers. While we do the best job possible in creating images that are true to the actual products we sell, we cannot predict what our images will look like on your display device. Without getting too technical, achieving color, tone and value accuracy on a computer display is a very difficult process, with many variables. Likewise, getting the correct color, tone and value printed onto paper is also a difficult thing to get right.

Here’s a simple check to see if your computer display produces our images in an acceptable way.

When viewing the image above, there should be 20 subtle steps (or values) in each row from left to right. If your display is operating properly, you will see distinct differences between all 20 steps of each color strip. If you can see all the steps in the image above, your display device is doing a very good job. However, there is still a possibility that our products will look slightly different than what you see on your display or printed on paper (remember color accuracy has many variables).

If your display does not show you the above image as it is described, please be aware that the actual product delivered to you may look different than when viewed on your display or when printed on paper.

You might be close…

If on your display you can NOT see a difference between a FEW STEPS at the ends of the scales, then your display is average at showing our images corectly, however, there is a possibility for minor differences between the image on your display (or from your printer) and the product delivered to you.

You might be far off…

If on your display you can see that there are MORE THAN A FEW OF THE STEPS MISSING in the image above, then your display is pretty far off in showing our images correctly. We would recommend that you attempt to adjust your display with the built-in controls of either your display or your computer operating software.

Because the types of displays and the types of operating software are many, we will not be able to help you adjust your display with specific instructions, however, here are some suggestions to get you started;

Read any user manuals that came with your display or computer,

Get help from a computer knowledgeable friend,

Do an internet search on how to do simple monitor adjustments,
Here are some possible search words; "monitor adjustments", "monitor calibration". Adding the words "simple", "easy" or "quick", might narrow the search.

You may find that your display looks somwhat "off" (compared to what your eyes are used to) after an adjustment, especially if you neeeded to change it a lot. This effect is quite normal and you will soon get used to it.

Is this really imporant?

Most of our customers will look at an image on their computer display and will accept the fact that the colors will be "OK" or pretty close to what they are seeing (provided that your eyes say that the image above is OK).

However, if the idea of color accuracy is a very important issue to you, you may want to look into purchasing monitor calibration tools, although they can be complicated to operate and expensive and even after use, may not produce the most accurate colors in every situation.

Something to consider...

If you are not able to achieve results that come close to matching our description for the image on this page, and you think you might be disapponted with the color, tone or value of our products, then you might consider looking over our Customer Satisfaction page before purchasing.