  Surface photometry is a necessary tool to establish the dynamical state of
stars clusters. We produce realistic HST-like images from N-body models of star
clusters with and without central intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in
order to measure their surface brightness profiles. The models contain ~600,000
individual stars, black holes of various masses between 0% to 2% of the total
mass, and are evolved for a Hubble time. We measure surface brightness and star
count profiles for every constructed image in order to test the effect of
intermediate mass black holes on the central logarithmic slope, the core
radius, and the half-light radius. We use these quantities to test diagnostic
tools for the presence of central black holes using photometry. We find that
the the only models that show central shallow cusps with logarithmic slopes
between -0.1 and -0.4 are those containing central black holes. Thus, the
central logarithmic slope seems to be a good way to choose clusters suspect of
containing intermediate-mass black holes. Clusters with steep central cusps can
definitely be ruled out to host an IMBH. The measured r_c/r_h ratio has similar
values for clusters that have not undergone core-collapse, and those containing
a central black hole. We notice that observed Galactic globular clusters have a
larger span of values for central slope and r_c/r_h than our modeled clusters,
and suggest possible reasons that could account for this and contribute to
improve future models.
