Aperture, Color Space, Printing, Oh My!

Question

Any help with these is greatly appreciated. I've read countless articles and forums, only to be left with these questions because no one can answer them.
1) In RAW only if I want to print with my B9180 and process in Aperture, does the in-camera color space settings even matter? I do use soft-proofing in Aperture for the HP papers I use. Everything I read about it says Adobe RGB in-camera should be used when making your own prints at home, but they are always referring to printing from within Photoshop, but I don't use PS, so I'm confused about this with Aperture.
2) Now, what if I shot JPGs? Will in-camera color space matter in this same scenario (Aperture, B9180 printing at home)?
3) Using Aperture in a JPG workflow, does the application see the in-camera color space I selected or does Aperture have its own color space? Or is it selected based on the soft-proofing profile I use?

Answer 1

Henrik,
That's an awful lot of words but none of it gets at the day to day use of the program or really provides and answer for the original poster of the thread.
Yes, of course a soft proof is a simulation. That's why it's a soft proof. It's also never going to match the output exactly. It can't.
Strip away all the science under the hood as it relates to soft-proofing in Aperture (part of Jerry's question #3) and the questions are:
What is this?
When should I use it?
How do I use it?
What? It's a way of getting a sense of how your image will look when output. It requires that you are working on a calibrated monitor and you need an output profile in order to use it. It will never match your output 100%. It cannot due to screen vs. paper, how the color on each is created, gamut and contrast of each, etc.
When? In Aperture you should work on your image with "Onscreen Proofing" turned off. Why? because you should work your images as best possible without initial regard for the output. It may end up being output for different uses in the future (screen, inkjet print, offset printed, etc.) You can use Aperture's "Onscreen Proofing" if you want get a sense of how your image will look when output. You don't have to, just like you don't have to in Photoshop. If all you are doing is outputting to an in-house inkjet printer you could just make a test print via color managed printing, see how it looks, and then adjust as needed. But if you want to get sense of what's what and whether you need to make any changes before you hit "print" then you can do the soft proof. The soft-proof would also be helpful heading off issues if you are not printing in-house (again, assuming you have a correct output profile.)
How? In Aperture to get a sense of how the output will be you need to select your output profile in View>Proofing Profile and then turn on Onscreen Proofing, View>Onscreen Proofing. Now, you can turn on and off the proofing feature to get a sense of how the image will be reproduced. If your image is not soft-proofing as you expected or want you can create a duplicate of the image file. Then alter that to bring the image as close as possible to the feel of the non-proofed image. This is similar to Photoshop where you can "Proof Setup" and the duplicate your image and/or create additional image layers to bring the image more in line with your intention or expectation.
Jerry - FWIW, I know you posted about an HP printer in another thread. See the comments here,
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/02/13/insideaperturepodcast-9.html . There seem to be some HP printer based issues with regard to Onscreen proofing. This link also has a podcast with Joe Schorr, Apple's Senior Product Manager for Aperture, specifically about color management and onscreen proofing in Aperture.
Jon Roemer
site: http://www.jonroemer.com/
blog: http://jonroemer.typepad.com/jon_roemer/