Dueling Features: Soft Proofing vs Print Adjustment

I'm really trying to appreciate the value of the new soft proofing feature that's got many around here excited. While there are other uses I'll get to in a minute, is it fair to say this feature is designed to make printed output predictable and save paper? I watched Julieanne Kost's tutorial and saw how we can identify out-of-gamut colors on our display device and any number of output devices/processes/papers. Her mooring pole example only seemed to illustrate the inherent compromises we have to make. If we're lucky our monitor IS showing us a hi-fidelity rendering of the image gamut and we're making an informed creative decision about which way we accommodate outlier colors in the output space. If, as in her example, both ends of the line are out of gamut, I'm not sure we're doing much more than fiddling. Not that I have anything against the illusion of control... if I did I couldn't stay married.
So assuming we've got a good monitor and decent eyes, soft proofing gives us some predictive power over what we're going to get before we feed a 24 x 30 sheet of Exhibition Fiber into the 9890 and blow $6 plus ink.
More useful in my own case is the potential to tailor image adjustments to client's prepress requirements. If I can get a prepress profile from a magazine client I can try to give them images that print better on their presses while staying true to my vision. Am I on the right track here?
Getting back to the title of my post, the print adjustment sliders just leave me scratching my head. After working so hard for the calibrationists out there willing to spend an hour to save a sheet of paper, along comes the no-preview-try-it-you-might-like-it approach of the brightness and contrast sliders. Talk about appealing to two different mentalities. One saves paper, the other says "throw another sheet in the machine and let's see what comes out"
I'm purposely trying to be humorous. I picture two LR teams arguing across the meeting room table. The calibrationists vs the gunslingers. MadManChan tell me it ain't so.

VeloDramatic wrote:
Getting back to the title of my post, the print adjustment sliders just leave me scratching my head. After working so hard for the calibrationists out there willing to spend an hour to save a sheet of paper, along comes the no-preview-try-it-you-might-like-it approach of the brightness and contrast sliders. Talk about appealing to two different mentalities.
Yup, very confusing. Especially if the issue is, my prints are too dark compared to my display which this is presumably supposed to fix. If the prints really are too dark, the RGB values need to be fixed and we have to wonder why the user didn’t see on their calibrated display, the RGB values are too dark. If instead, the print is darker appearing than the display, the fix seems to be to properly calibrate the display or fix the print viewing conditions to produce a match. And if the print is only too dark appearing compared to the display, what do the sliders do once you have a lighter (matching) print next to your too bright display and move the print away? Seems it would appear too light, not a good solution.

Similar Messages

CS4 - Match Print Colors vs Soft Proof (Proof Colors)

Using a custom printer profile, when I check Match Print Colors in the Print dialog box, the preview closely matches the print. However, the image in the CS4 workspace (with Proof Colors checked) looks like the print preview with Match Print Colors unchecked. The main difference is that the Proof Colors image is brighter than the print preview or actual print. I have the same profile selected in each case. How can I get the Proof Colors view to match the Print dialog preview which more accurately matches the print? I've carefully checked all settings.

To get the best soft proof for print you have to have two accurate color profiles in place.
A monitor profile which would be generated by a hardware or software calibrator during a monitor calibration—if you calibrated your monitor to something like 2.0 gamma and a 5500 K white point, a coresponding monitor profile would be generated for the OS so that the CS applications know what your monitor conditions are.
You also need an accurate press profile, which is usually assigned to a document on creation (Edit>Assign Profiles). The default is US Web Coated SWOP, which creates a lighter soft proof than US Sheetfed Coated.
If either or both profiles are off the softproof (View>Overprint Preview if your layout has RGB color) will be less accurate. So for exmple, if your monitor's gamma is 2.2, but the monitor profile has it as 1.8, and your press profile is US SWOP but the press is printing closer to US Sheetfed, you would get a soft proof that's too light.

Soft proofing - implementation suggestions

Reading this thread it seems the Lightroom team is seriously considering or actually implementing soft proofing for LR3.0. Since it's not in the current beta, the users cannot give feedback on the implementation. Instead, let's use this thread to give suggestions on how soft proofing should work.
Here are my suggestions:
availability: soft proofing should be available in all modules: you need it for print and web output, but the necessary corrections are made in the develop and library modules.
UI placement: the film strip seems to be a logical place for a tool that can be used from within all modules.
features: soft proofing would need an on/off toggle, a clipping indicator toggle and a list menu to select/create soft proofing profiles (with a choice of relative/perceptual; black point would be nice but doesn't fit the 'lightroom way').
monitor proofing: make it easy for users to select the profile corresponding to their monitor. That way they get a warning that their monitor may be 'cheating' them (especially on laptops).
further: the tool could show a warning if it is switched on with the 'wrong' profile for the active module. For example, for web you should only use sRGB, for print the same as selected for the printer and for the slideshow perhaps only the monitor profile.
Anyone else?
Simon

Jeff Schewe wrote:
I disagree for several reason: 1) the Develop module is the ONLY color accurate viewing environment, 2) Develop already has a before/after built in that can be adapted to the task of showing a before and an after with the after representing the output space. 3) the Develop module allows the creation and or selection of Develop templates as well as snapshots. Snapshots might make an excellent vehicle for carrying image adjustments.
I am not sure what you mean by the develop module being the only color accurate viewing environment. I just checked it by setting my monitor gamma to 1.0, and all modules applied the necessary adjustments to the images. The only difference I could find is that the other modules use heavily compressed JPGs, leading to the occasional artifact when viewing at 1:1.
I really believe that soft proofing itself is fundamentally an analysis tool that should be accessible from all modules, and not necessarily be linked to image adjustment tools. If someone wants to work on a set of images for a particular output process, he/she should be able to make all necessary changes with soft proofing turned on, and have the effects visible in all modules. Of course, in practice many users will want to target different output media for the same image, and such tools are important, but need not be a show-stopper for soft-proofing to appear.
On your number (2), I personally don't find before/after view essential, or even that useful, when making adjustments for printing. When you want to compress an image into the gamut of a printer, I tend to make small adjustments in the context of that particular image, not with a reference to some master image. The exception to this case would be if you really have something which you would call the 'master' (say, some really famous image), and you want the output to be as close as possible on more restricted printing process. In any case, I wouldn't consider a before/after view as essential. And when it's needed, it could be implemented by an on/off toggle as well, IMO.
I find snapshots quite cumbersome, and especially for the purpose of keeping track of such 'output versions'. The problem is that they exist inside the develop module, they are 'all or nothing', and there is no easy way to transfer partial settings between snapshots. For example, suppose I have three 'output versions' of an image, and I decide to change some of the underlying settings (say, the white balance). Then I don't have an easy way to synchronize these changes between the output versions. Another issue is that there is no easy way to recall snapshots from outside the develop module. If I want to print a couple of images for which I have the necessary adjustments at some other time, I have to go in and select the appropriate snapshot for each of them. In the context of these 'output versions', this is something that should be possible from the library module, where you select the versions you have worked on before.
Also note that while Develop might be the place for adjusting the image for the output, the creation of an output adjustment might be best called up in Print (or Export). So you might create a saved preset that contains the output device, the specific profile, the rendering intent and whatever output based adjustments the image (or images) may need. That could be done directly in the Print module...
The three main factors that soft proofed adjustments require is a change in the tone curve required by differences in dynamic range or outputs, hue and saturation adjustments to counter or alter the way a profile may render a certain (or several) colors and a local area contrast adjustment in the form of Clarity. Ideally, the soft proofing tools should contain a soft proofed histogram, color samples in the output space and tone/color adjustments suited for correcting for the output condition.
Ok, I can see a benefit to a separate output adjustment tool that is specifically aimed for the type of adjustments you'd make when soft-proofing. The settings for this tool could be linked to the output device and profile, so that they would switch automatically according to the profile that is selected. When soft-proofing is turned on in the library module, there could be an icon in the images for which a particular output transformation is defined. And because soft-proofing would be fully functional in the develop module, you could inspect which other images need further adjustments.
I don't think it's very useful to have a 'preset' for this tool for a particular output profile and rendering intent, independent of the image. That's the job of the profile itself. However, it should be possible to easily copy-paste such settings between images. For example, if I have shots a number of images in bright green grass, I will probably need similar adjustments for all of them. Also, settings should be copyable to serve as a starting point for use with a different profile.
The 'output adjustment tool' itself should IMO contain two things:
1) Photoshop-like hue/sat control (with selectable color ranges) [most important]
2) Manual tone curve adjustments.
I wouldn't mind if the tool is only accessible from within the develop module, as long as you can see the soft-proof from all modules. The soft-proofing functionality (separate from this tool) should also take care of adjusting the histogram in the library and develop modules.
Summarinzing, I see room for two separate tool sets that do not necessarily need to be implemented at the same time. The first is an overarching soft-proofing solution that makes the effects of the output transformation visible throughout the workflow. The second is a separate output adjustment tool in the develop module, that is able to link it's settings to the currently selected output device/profile.
Simon

Is Lightroom 2.2 color managed? How to soft proof?

I was just told that LR 2.2 is not color managed and softproofing is not possible... is this true?
I also have PS CS4... What is the best way to use LR 2.2 for you image editing in a color managed workflow if you also want to Soft proof before printing when you also have PS CS4?

It is correct that LR does not have soft proofing. But you don't have to print from PS to use soft proofing.
For color images, when I've finished with Develop in LR, I then edit in PS and do the soft proofing there. I have recorded some actions (two per paper type - one for each rendering intent - relative and perceptual) which I then apply as appropriate. The actions apply two adjustment layers - a curve and a hue/sat (to do a saturation bump - not necessary for all papers). I then tweak if necessary, flatten the layers and save the result.
I then print the PS edited file in LR. In my case I also rename the file to indicate the paper and rendering intent, plus I keyword it accordingly.
It's a pain but works very well. By printing in LR you can take advantage of the built-in output sharpening, and it's generally more convenient to set up - at least for me.
I have an Epson 2880 - when printing Black and White I use Eric Chan's profiles for the 3800 ABW mode - they seem to work fine for the 2880 - at least for me - I get results that match what I see on screen. For B&W I do not need to use PS at all - I just print directly from LR - no need to soft proof.
Selby

Soft Proofing for Blurb

How do I creat a color profile in Lightroom for Blurb? I know they use HP Indigo printers (which are CMKY) but I would like at least a compatible color profile as well as options for when I creat books with different paper types. Do you have any suggestions so that I can be sure that my images are soft proofed for printing through Blurb?

Keep in mind that your monitor puts limits on how useful soft-proofing is. If you have a standard-gamut monitor, what you see on-screen is already soft-proofed to sRGB (more or less). If your target profile has a larger gamut, you won't see any difference on-screen.
If you want to do this in Lightroom, just soft-proof to sRGB and you'll probably be fine. The histogram will show you if there is substantial channel clipping, and you can adjust to that. However, since you have Photoshop, my choice would be to do it there, using the Blurb profile.
Printing conditions vary widely around the world and CMYK-profiles likewise. To give you an example, US Web Coated (SWOP) v2, which is the Photoshop default, has a gamut much smaller than sRGB. In Europe the corresponding standard is ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI), which has a gamut that practically corresponds to Adobe RGB. To soft-proof effectively for this you need a wide gamut monitor.
Where the Blurb profile places in this I don't know.

Soft proofing to sRGB not working as expected

I've gone through three customer reps via chat on this, and none of them had a clue.
I recently discovered the soft proofing capability in Lightroom 4, and watched an Adobe video about it. Looked pretty cool. I experimented with soft-proofing for printing to an Epson Artisan printer. I'd always struggled a little bit with prints being too dark, etc., but now I was able to produce the best prints I've ever had.
But then I started to experiment with soft proofing for sRGB. My photo club takes photo submissions as sRGB, and they then show them on a monitor during meetings. Sometimes they don't look so good. So, I figured soft-proofing them first would help correct that.
So, I've got a photo that has a lot of red in it (a flower). The soft proofing indicated pretty much all of the reds were out of gamut. I tried reducing the saturation, but they had to go pretty much completely desaturated (black and white) before Lightroom said they were in gamut. I also experimented with change the hue, but still no luck.
I then deleted the soft proof virtual copy, and just exported the original as sRGB. Looked fine.
This would seem to make the soft proofing to sRGB to be somewhat useless for me (at least for reds - seemed okay for the small number of other photos I experimented with that didn't have that much red).
Just wondering if anyone else has had issues with this, or if I'm doing anything incorrectly, etc.
Thanks!
P.S. Update... Last chat rep had me try something that seemed to work better. My photos are stored in Lightroom as JPGs with a color space of RGB and a color profile of ProPhoto RGB. If I export that photo to JPG / sRGB, then re-import it into Lightroom, and then do the soft proofing again, it works much better. The downside of this that the two-step process makes it a bit unusable for me.

> if I'm doing anything incorrectly,
You should not really try to do the bringing of the colors into gamut too much. I know the videos you see online show this but it is really counterproductive in many cases. You'll often completely desaturate or get really disagreeable hue shifts if you trust the out of gamut warnings as you have noticed. What you should do is turn on the softproof and check whether your image looks good and the colors don't shift too much. If they do or you lose essential detail, try to correct it using the HSL tools or local desaturation. The out of gamut warning is more useful when you are proofing to a printer profile and you might have colors that your display cannot show but your printer can print. For sRGB, not so much in my experience.
> Last chat rep had me try something that seemed to work better. My photos are stored in Lightroom as JPGs with a color space of RGB and a color profile of ProPhoto RGB. If I export that photo to JPG / sRGB, then re-import it into Lightroom, and then do the soft proofing again, it works much better
That's a silly answer that rep gave you. What happens when you export to sRGB is that all your colors will get truncated hard(it uses a relative coloremtric conversion) to the sRGB profile, so if there was detail there that you wish to preserve you just lost it and you won't be able to get it back. Of course if you then soft proof the sRGB jpeg to sRGB, you will have an easy time conforming it to sRGB, since it already is! The out of gamut warning it might show you on sRGB jpegs without any correction is not correct - a known bug or strangeness with how Lightroom handles these and just tiny touches on the sliders will make them disappear. It is fooling you and in fact you were better off not even trying to soft proof and simply exporting to sRGB and ignoring soft proofing.
P.S. the monitor problems you have noticed in your photo club are probably more an issue of the monitor not being calibrated and probably not using a color managed application to show the images. If your monitor is calibrated and that one is too and using a color managed app to show the images should give you very good correspondance in color between your monitor and that one regardless of what color space you choose for the images. That might perhaps be a good thing for the club. You really need to be calibrating monitors and use only color managed apps for display.

Soft Proofing CS3 and OS X 10.5.2

Issue: Printing with calibrated Artisan Monitor, Epson 4000, Epson Driver version 3.09 results in light magenta proof image but apparently correct image when printed. Hardware platform: Mac pro dual 2.8GH Xeon, 16G memory, 15k sas boot and identical scratch drive.
Printing with application controlled settings (CS3), setting printer to paper profile (Premium Luster), soft proofing on monitor, disabling color management in print dialogue, preview image looks light with magenta cast (as it always did in windows CS3 with Epson preview) but print usually matches soft proof. When I set printer profile (in the CS3 print window)to Adobe RGB or generic RGB, the preview image looks like soft proof, but print very dark. I am totally new to Mac OS, long time XP user, so don't understand much about colorsync, etc.
Is this a photoshop bug, problem in OS X 10.52 or something else?
I also downloaded Colorburst Rip demo and it prints fine, but I much prefer to use native printer driver to save money as planning to upgrade printer.

All the monitor is doing in Photoshop is faithfully PROOFING the Source File (through a Source Profile-to-MonitorRGB Conversion).
"Soft Proof" here usually means Photoshop> View> Proof SetUp> Custom: specific target ICC Profile
Epson Print Preview is not color managed (use it for layout only).
WHY on earth "set printer profile (in the CS3 print window)to Adobe RGB or generic RGB"?
Printer Profile should be set to Specific Printer/Paper/Ink ICC profile...
http://www.gballard.net/psd/printing_Epson_Photoshop_cs3.html
All the printer is doing is PROOFING the Source File (through a Source Profile-to-Printer Profile Conversion).
If your printed PROOF is off, it is either a bad printer profile or bad settings (assuming your monitor is good and you are basing your judgment on the monitor)...

How to use ICC profiles and soft proofing profiles?

Hi,
I got an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 and Epson Hot Press paper which, upon investigation, received great profeesional reviews and, having never printed digitally before, I don't know how to use profiles for soft proofing or printing.
I don't know where to go in Aperture or what to do. My driver is up to date and I downloaded the paper profile - not sure where it ended up. What's next?
So far as I know, soft proofing is about calibrating the monitor to the paper - am I correct?
Thanks guys,
Raphael

Raphael,
A good reply is going to require a full-size keyboard, which I don't have access to just now. Here are some starter pages:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.shtml (a bit grumpy and out-dated)
Fwiw, I print to Epson Hot Press using a 3880. Imho, it's a _great_ printer, and that combination of printer and paper produced state-of-the-art results. (Not suitable in all cases, but if that is a look you like, the only thing that I've seen that surpasses it is the Epson 9900, and without looking at prints side by side you can not tell them apart.)
Your profile ended up wherever you have told your browser to save downloaded files. The Epson site should provide instructions on where to move the file. Once it is in the right Finder folder, when you next Aperture it should show in your list of profiles.
Keep in mind, though, that soft-proofing is useless without a well (read: hardware-calibrated) calibrated display.
HTH,
--Kirby.
(Sent from my magic glass.)

Soft Proofing Question

I have made a soft proof and printed. I now want to go back and make additional edits on the soft proof while comparing to my original. If I go back to the original and check soft proof, it offers me a fresh version, rather than the one I printed from. Is there a way to compare the original to the edited soft proof after printing and make additional edits while comparing????

You have processed an image to a certain state, and this is now what you wish to print, correct? This state is copied into the proofing copy when you first make it - as the initial item in its History. That is the "before" state of the before/after function. The "after" state of the before/after function, for the proofing copy, tracks whatever adjustments you then make to that, in relation to a softproofed display, for printing purposes.
These adjustments do not appear in the "before" state, because they have happened subsequent to that state, within the History of this particular image version. This continues to be the case even after you make a test print, and make some more adjustments to the proofing copy as a result of that. Your basis of comparison remains the same.
Also the softproofing does not appear in the "before" display, because the original editing of the image prior to softproofing (the appearance which you want to see) was not done in softproofing mode.
So before/after does give you exactly the comparison which (unless I misunderstand you) you are asking for, when you write "comparing the softproof to the original file I started with".
When softproofing is first turned on and a new proofing copy made, the master image is left in place. The adjustments made specifically for printing are only relevant to the proofing copy and can only be properly judged in softproof mode.
Further general-purpose changes made to the master image (after the creation of the proofing copy) are not going to reflect into that same proofing copy because these are now independent image versions in the Catalog.
Print-specific adjustments made to the proofing copy do not (necessarily, cannot) appear in the master copy, for the same reason - and this is actively desirable. The master image needs to be able to serve other purposes, for which these particular print adjustments would be unsuitable.
However you are free to generate a fresh proofing copy from the master, or to selectively copy-paste or Sync any updated adjustments from the master, into the proofing copy / copies, and to transfer corrective adjustments between different proofing copies, at will.

I use lightroom with the soft proofing feature for my printing. I used to make a copy proof, but all of the sudden something changed, and even if I'm on the copy in the developing mode it prints the original. Also, If i chose a file that was already in li

I use lightroom with the soft proofing feature for my printing. I used to make a copy proof, but all of the sudden something changed, and even if I'm on the copy in the developing mode it prints the original. Also, If i chose a file that was already in light room to print, even though I have the chosen file up in the developing mode, it will instead print the most recent file that I added to lightroom. If found a way to work around these problems, (check make this the copy in the soft proofing, and copy my settings and delete and reload the old files) but it's a slight hassle and it didn't use to do this. Not sure why it changed. Could I have accidentally changed a setting?

See
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
- I would start with
Removing and Reinstalling iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows XP
or
Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
However, after your remove the Apple software components also remove the iCloud Control Panel via Windows Programs and Features app in the Window Control Panel. Then reinstall all the Apple software components
- Then do the other actions of:
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
paying special attention to item #5
- New cable and different USB port
- Run this and see if the results help with determine the cause
iTunes for Windows: Device Sync Tests
Also see:
iPod not recognised by windows iTunes
Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates
- Try on another computer to help determine if computer or iPod problem

Colors in print preview not matching colors in soft proofing

Hi There,
Just wanted to print a new photo and realized that the colors in print preview do not match the colors in soft proofing. In both cases I selected the same icc profile and rendering method. The print colors matched the colors in print preview. I never had a problem so far. All new prints will be checked with soft proofing and adjusted when necessary. I never paid attention to the color rendition in print preview and all prints perfectly matched the colors from the soft proofing. I was surprised when my print came out of the printer and the colors weren't matching the soft proofing colors, but that of the print preview.
I don't understand why Photoshop renders the colors differently in the first place. Please see attached screenshot for the difference in the blue/cyan colors.
I would appreciate if anybody could point me in the right direction in what is causing this difference. I don't care if the print view colors will match the print, but I do care when soft proofing is not working.
Thank you.
Best regards,
D.

Here are some addtional details:
PS 13.1.2
Mac OS X 10.8.4
12 GB Ram
60 GB free disk space
I printed the same photo from two other computers (MacBook and iMac) with different PS versions (CS4 and CS5). The prints turned out identical to the first one which matches the print preview color rendition on my main computer (MacPro) running CS6. Strangely the colors in print preview of CS5 on the iMac renders the colors identical to the soft proofing colors.

[LR 5] Soft Proofing - Monitor Gamut Warning vary with printer profile ?!?!

Hi,
There's something I can't understand when using the soft proofing feature in LR.
The Monitor Gamut Warning feature (top left icon in the histogram when soft proofing is enabled) is supposed to show us what colors in the current image cannot be reproduced on the display. Right ? If I understand well, the warning computation is made by comparing the current image (virtualized by LR in the Melissa RGB color space) to the gamut of the display (read from the active calibration profile).
So why does LR show different "out of gamut" areas for the display when I change the printer profile selected when using soft proofing? This doesn't make sense to me.
Did I miss something?
Thanks in advance.

indeed they are vague about this. My thought about this comes from conversing with Adobe folks here and elsewhere as I am pretty sure I'vce discussed this on the forum before. As far as I know the monitor warning is supposed to be calculated after the conversion to the printer profile so that you get an idea whether the soft proofed color is accurately displayed. That shoud be the correct behavior as proofing can actually take a color either in or out of the monitor gamut. I am not 100% sure on this though but it certainly explains how it behaves.
Also if you calibrate your display and write out a icc v4 display profile, the situation changes again as now the display profile can actually contain a perceptual rendering intent, making it even less precise and the assumption of simple one-to-one linear conversions between color spaces is invalid. Few calibration software packages do this though but there are a few exceptions.
If you only want to know whether your image is outside of the display profile, you can indeed trick the soft proof to allow you to select a display profile as the printer proofing profile. You can in principle select a standard working space such as prophotoRGB there and get results that make sense. But you definitely do not want to have a random printer profile selected for the reasons cited above. I guess they could add some smartness to detect that you selected the profile of the current display and not a profile of another random display and then collapse the interface but that is such an edge case that I doubt Adobe would prioritize this. It works fine if you simply realize that you selected your monitor profile as the printer proof profile.

Soft proofing for online printing - CS5

After using PSE since V1 and LR since it was beta I've added CS5 and I'm a bit overwhelmed. Right now I'm trying to set up CS5 to soft proof for online printing. I read a bunch of online tutorials including Dry Creek Photo's, then downloaded and installed the ICC files for my local Costco. When I select one of the Costco printers under View - Proof Setup - Custom - Device to Simulate, I get an error message: "Could not complete your request because the ICC profile is invalid." I've repeated this with profiles from other Costcos - including one across the country from me - and from Adorama. No joy. I'm running CS5 V12.1 x64; it's the same story in 32 bit. OS is Vista 64 Home Premium (fully updated). Interestingly, I had no problem when I downloaded ICC profiles for a couple of paper-printer combinations; it's the online services that are giving me grief. Any idea what I can try next?

Keep in mind that your monitor puts limits on how useful soft-proofing is. If you have a standard-gamut monitor, what you see on-screen is already soft-proofed to sRGB (more or less). If your target profile has a larger gamut, you won't see any difference on-screen.
If you want to do this in Lightroom, just soft-proof to sRGB and you'll probably be fine. The histogram will show you if there is substantial channel clipping, and you can adjust to that. However, since you have Photoshop, my choice would be to do it there, using the Blurb profile.
Printing conditions vary widely around the world and CMYK-profiles likewise. To give you an example, US Web Coated (SWOP) v2, which is the Photoshop default, has a gamut much smaller than sRGB. In Europe the corresponding standard is ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI), which has a gamut that practically corresponds to Adobe RGB. To soft-proof effectively for this you need a wide gamut monitor.
Where the Blurb profile places in this I don't know.

Why are my soft proofed prints always too dark in the dark areas and why are the colors, especially red, washed out.

Use a calibrated camera and monitor. Work in PS CC. Have a controlled work room. Soft proof according to Jeff Schewe of the 'Luminous Landscape'. Printing on a new Epson r2880 with a custom profile. Use fresh Epson Luster paper. The problem keeps persisting no matter what I do. Any and all help will be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Richard

Please turn off your auto reply in your emails. The forums are designed to be used through a web browser while logged in to the forum. We don't need to see stuff like your "On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 10:50 PM, station_two <[email protected]>". Everybody sees everyone's post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, did they first send you a target file which you then printed on your particular printer using your intended paper and inks, then snail-mailed the print to them in California in order for them to make your custom printer profile for you, which they then in turn emailed to you? If that was not the case, you do not have a custom profile at all, but a meaningless stock one. Even if they used a printer model exactly like yours when they created the profile, it was not done on your particular unit and therefore is not valid.
On the other hand, if the procedure above was indeed followed correctly, then that custom printer profile is showing you exactly what your images will look like once you print them.
That's precisely what soft proofing is for, so you can adjust your image while in Proof view.
Hope this clears it up for you.

Printing, Soft Proofing & Color Management in LR 1.2: Two Questions

Printing, Soft Proofing, and Color Management in LR 1.2: Two Questions
There are 2 common ways to set color management in Adobe CS2:
1. use managed by printer setting or,
2. use managed by Adobe CS2 program.
I want to ask how Color Management for Adobe LR 1.2 differs from that in CS2?
As is well known, Color Management by printer requires accurate printer profiles including specific model printer, types of ink and specific paper. It is clear that this seems to work well for LR 1.2 when using the Printer module.
Now lets consider what happens one tries to use Color Management by Adobe LR 1.2. Again, as is well known, Color Management by printer must be turned off so that only one Color Management system is used. It has been my experience that LR 1.2 cant Color Manage my images correctly. Perhaps someone with more experience can state whether this is true or what I might be doing to invalidate LR 1.2 Color Management.
Specifically, I cant use Soft Proofing to see how my images are changed on my monitor when I try to use the edit functions in LR 1.2. Martin Evening states in his text, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book that it is not possible to display the results of the rendered choices (Perceptual or Relative) on the display monitor. While it is not clear in Evenings text if this applies to LR 1.2, my experience would suggest that it still applies to the 1.2 update even though the publication date of his book preceded this update.
Can someone with specific knowledge of Adobe LR 1.2 confirm that Color Management and Soft Proofing with LR 1.2 hasnt been implemented at the present.
The writer is a retired physicist with experience in laser physics and quantum optics.
Thanks,
Hersch Pilloff

Hersch,
since just like me, you're a physicist (I am just a little further from retirement ;) ) I'll explain a little further. computer screens (whether they are CRT or LCD) are based on emission (or transmission) of three colors of light in specific (but different for every screen) shades of red, green, and blue. This light stimulates the receptors in your eye which are sensitive to certain but different bands of red, green and blue as the display emits, making your brain think it sees a certain color instead of a mix of red green and blue. Printers however, produce color by modifying the reflection of the paper by absorbing light. Their color mixing operates completely differently than displays. When you throw all colors of ink on the paper, you get black (the mixing is said to be subtractive) instead of white as you get in displays (the mixing there is additive). The consequence of this is that in the absence of an infinite number of inks you cannot produce all the colors you can display on a monitor using a printer and vice versa. This can be easily seen if you compare a display's profile to a printer profile in a program such as Colorsync utility (on every mac) or
Gamut vision. Typically printers cannot reproduce a very large region in the blue but most displays on the other hand cannot make saturated yellows and cyans.
Here is a flattened XY diagram of a few color spaces and a typical printer profile to illustrate this. Most displays are close to sRGB, but some expensive ones are close to adobeRGB, making the possible difference between print and screen even worse.
So, when the conversion to the printer's profile is made from your source file (which in Lightroom is in a variant of prophotoRGB), for a lot of colors, the color management routine in the computer software has to make an approximation (the choice of perceptual and relative colorimetric determine what sort of approximation is made). Soft proofing allows you to see the result of this approximation and to correct specific problems with it.

Dueling Features: Soft Proofing vs Print Adjustment

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