The virtual fluorescent standard (VFS) method is a new approximation method for the practical measurement of the colorimetric properties of an object treated with fluorescent whitening agent (FWA). The essential requirement of the VFS method is that the bi-spectral characteristics of the VFS must be similar in curve shape to those of the object to be measured. In the case of an object printed on an FWA-treated substrate, the bi-spectral characteristics will vary depending on not only the substrate but also the printed ink films. In this study, two simplified VFS methods, one using the bi-spectral characteristics of the substrate and the other using those of typical paper as the VFS instead of those similar to each object, were evaluated. The evaluation was performed using two instrument models for the VFS method with the different illuminations with five sets of 13 samples printed in different colors by five different printer/paper combinations. In this evaluation, the total spectral radiance factor of each sample was obtained by simulated measurement, that is, it was calculated based on the bi-spectral radiance factor of the sample and the spectral power distributions of the light source of the instrument. The total spectral radiance factor of each sample under D50 obtained using both VFS models and CIE L*a*b* values derived there-from were compared with those by the reference model with ideal D50 illumination. Although the samples are limited, the results shows that both simplified VFS methods remarkably reduce the errors due to fluorescence when compared to the conventional method. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 37, 168-175, 2012; Published online 13 July 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20677