A linen tester is a small magnifying glass in reproduction and printing technology with 8 to 10x magnification. Linen testers are often used in pre-press to check halftone or register accuracy.
The linen tester is therefore a magnifying glass that is primarily used to visualise fine details in the printed image. It is used in print control and error analysis to detect irregularities such as:
- Point structure (grid points) and their quality,
- Colour gradients and their even distribution,
- Distortion or loss of detail (e.g. in small fonts),
to check.
The linen tester was invented to check the quality of fabrics. It is still used today in the textile industry to measure the number of weft and warp threads in a specific area of the fabric.
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