Inspection of solder paste on a printed circuit board using a before printing image (pre-application image) to normalize an after printing image (post-application image) of the printed circuit board. Existing lighting and optics used for alignment of the screen-printing stencil to the printed circuit board are used for the solder paste inspection. An embodiment is described wherein pad regions of the printed circuit board are inspected for information about the solder paste applied on the pad regions of the printed circuit board. A stencil in the screen printing process is also inspected using a before printing image (pre-application) to normalize an after printing image (post-application) of the stencil.