Printers who work from our archive often ask what a master looks like before they commit a job to it. This library holds a small set of files kept at the bench for that purpose: a colour check reel, a pair of scanned sheets and a short proof set. Each one is the real file format the shops send us, at the size they arrive, so a press room can open it in its own software and read it the same way we do.
Nothing here is a finished job from a named shop. The files are there to be read, measured and downloaded.
The reel runs for two minutes and does not repeat. It moves slowly through three tonal grounds, from a dark green black, through a warm ochre, to a deep blue, with fine grain over the whole frame and a faint flicker in the midtones. There is no sound and no title card. Watch it at the size your screen gives you, and at a full screen if you can, because the steps between the grounds are easiest to judge on a large picture.
Desk staff use this kind of gradient to check that a monitor holds its tone across the range before any colour is approved for press. The 1080p version is the one to download if you want to compare it on your own equipment. The 480p version is smaller and suits a slow connection.
Downloads: colour-sweep-1080.mp4 at 1080p, and colour-sweep-480.mp4 at 480p. Both are 16:9.
Everything in this library is the operator's own digitisation or recording, made at the archive's bench and checked by the intake desk before it was placed here. We publish it so that shops can compare their proofs against a known reference, and for no other purpose. Please keep the files as they are when you use them.