of the present invention a test element according to the invention such as is illustrated in fig2 or 3 for example is now sufficient to characterize a printing process fig2 shows a first example of a test element 10 according to the invention this is an example of a four color system using the colors cmyk the test element 10 in this case is divided up into two subregions 11 and 12 these subregions 11 12 of the test element 10 are assigned colored areas 3 in each case the set of colored areas 3 which are assigned to one subregion 11 12 in each case is assigned an individual subset 54 54 of actual data which is measured later the subregion 11 includes colored areas 3 which build up a stepped wedge the colored areas 3 are in each case built up exclusively from one printing ink cmyk with different tonal values for this purpose if the tonal value is 0 in each case then four white colored areas 4 are formed in the case of a tonal value of 100 the result is the four full tone colored areas 6 the remaining colored areas 3 result from variations in the tonal values each having a 10 spacing of the tonal values so that the result in this case is a total of.