Preview: Colour management/soft proofing?

I've finally had it with Acrobat (it's slow, buggy, argghh) and would like to use Preview as my main PDF viewer. I like the colour management settings in Acrobat and found the colour rendition faithful. I use it to soft proof files for press printing.
Is there any colour management settings in Preview?
It would be nice to know that what I'm seeing is representative of the file's colours.
Cheers, Lee.

You should only have to embed the profile used in Illustrator. It should be easy to check if it works. Save an identical PDF image out of Illustrator and Photoshop so you have both a vector and raster images to compare. Save one with a profile embedded and one without for each image. View both of them in Preview. At the same time, open them in Acrobat. Does the color look the same in one or the other? Also, what version of Acrobat are you using? Version 7 is much faster at loading and display than 6.

Similar Messages

Soft Proofing in Aperture 2

Am I missing something, there doesn't seem to any option to simulate paper colour whilst soft proofing in Aperture 2. If it doesn't do this I still need to go into Photoshop to soft proof properly?
Thanks
Ian

Ian,
AFAIK, profiles should be computed using the specific printer, inks, and paper—you don't apply the paper type afterward. I use an online print lab and have separate profiles for different printer types.
Cheers,
Andreas

How differs soft proofing in View - Proof Colors and Save for Web - Preview?

Hi, I'm currently confused with one inconsistency. My working space is Adobe RGB and I use calibrated monitor. After I finish my work on image I go to View -> Proof Colors -> Internet Standard RGB. Image looks terribly with the overall violet/purple hue. Then I open Save for Web dialogue, I check Convert to RGB and from Preview options I select again Internet Standard RGB. Now the previewed image looks as expected. The same results I get if I manually convert image to sRGB before soft proofing and saving for web. So... what's the difference between preview in Proof Colours and in Save for Web? Thank you for your opinions.

Hi 21, thank you for your input. All what you say makes perfect sense, it is exactly how it should work and how I expected it works. My problem was, that while testing this theory in practice, I have come to different results. I expected, that if I stick to the theory (meaning keeping in mind all rules you perfectly described) I should get the same result in both soft proof and save for web preview. But... it was not the case. Save for web preview offered expected results while soft proof was completely out of any assumptions and colours were totally over-saturated with violet/purple hue. Also, Edit -> Assign Profile -> sRGB gave another result then Soft Proof -> Custom -> assign sRGB (preserve numbers), but the same as save for web preview. What troubled me was why this is so.
Today I've made tests on hardware calibrated monitor and... everything works exactly as you describe and as I expected.
Then I went back to another monitor which is software calibrated (both monitors are calibrated with X-Rite i1 Display Pro). And again... I received strange results described above. So I did the last thing I thought and disabled colour calibration on that monitor. And suddenly... both soft proof and save for web preview gave the same result.
Probable conclusion: soft proof and save for web preview (together with Edit -> Assign Profile) are programmed to use different algorithm which is evident on standard gamut monitors with software calibration. Question can be closed.
Gene and 21, thank you for your effort.

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.

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.

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

Bug: Previews not generated properly when Soft Proofing is enabled in LR5, LR5.2 RC

I am experiencing problems with previews in Lightroom 5.0 and Lightroom 5.2 RC.
I have noticed incorrect previews under the following circumstances when Soft Proofing is enabled:
1. When I make modifications (like cropping), the preview in the Navigator panel does not update until I uncheck (and recheck) the Soft Proofing option.
2. When I am paging through several images at 100% or greater, the view in the main window, while zoomed in correctly, does not provide the correct resolution (blurry) until I either uncheck (and recheck) the Soft Proofing option or zoom out and zoom back in.
I am using:
Lightroom 5.0 64-bit, Lightroom 5.2 RC 64-bit
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Canon CR2 RAW files
16GB RAM, plenty of local disk space
Note: I have not done extensive testing on this, but many of these files are stored on a network drive, so I don't know if there is some sort of bug in the optimized routines for network drives/folders.

I have the same problem as michaeln2 and adobe 1230931.
I use Lightroom 4.4.
When I am in the Develop screen and I turn on Soft Proofing, then about 20% of the time the image goes blank. If I go back to Library view and reenter Devleop, sometimes the image will show up, sometimes not. If I advance to other images, sometimes they'll show and sometimes not in the Soft Proofing mode. Sometimes rotating an image in Library mode and going back into Develop "wakes up" the Soft Proofing and sometimes not.
In other words, the soft proofing feature is, as michaeln2 says, functionally useless. I'm surprised that no fix has been posted on this thread. No point upgrading to Ver 5 either...as it seems to be buggy there as well. Help!

How do I fix colour picker to work across different colour-managed monitors?

Hey everyone!
I'm assuming this problem I'm having stems from having colour-calibrated monitors, but let me know if I'm wrong!
To preface, this is the setup I have:
Windows 7
3 monitors as follows, all have individual colour profiles calibrated using the Spyder 3
Cintiq 12WX
Dell U2410
Dell 2409WFP
Photoshop CS6 - Proofed with Monitor RGB, and tested with colour-managed and non-colour-managed documents
I usually do most of my work on the Cintiq 12WX, but pull the photoshop window to my main monitor to do large previews and some corrections. I noticed that the colour picker wouldn't pick colours consistently depending on the monitor the Photoshop window is on.
Here are some video examples:
This is how the colour picker works on my Dell U2410: http://screencast.com/t/lVevxk5Ihk
This is how it works on my Cintiq 12WX: http://screencast.com/t/tdREx4Xyhw9
Main Question
I know the Cintiq's video capture makes the picture look more saturated than the Dell's, but it actually looks fine physically, which is okay. But notice how the Cintiq's colour picker doesn't pick a matching colour. It was actually happening the opposite way for a while (Dell was off, Cintiq was fine), but it magically swapped while I was trying to figure out what was going on. Anyone know what's going on, and how I might fix it?
Thanks for *any* help!
Semi-related Question regarding Colour Management
Colour management has always been the elephant-in-the-room for me when I first tried to calibrate my monitors with a Spyder colourimeter years ago. My monitors looked great, but Photoshop's colours became unpredictable and I decided to abandon the idea of calibrating my monitors for years until recently. I decided to give it another chance and follow some tutorials and articles in an attempt to keep my colours consistent across Photoshop and web browsers, at least. I've been proofing against monitor colour and exporting for web without an attached profile to keep pictures looking good on web browsers. However, pictures exported as such will look horrible when uploaded to Facebook. Uploading pictures with an attached colour profile makes it look good on Facebook. This has forced me to export 2 versions of a picture, one with an attached colour profile and one without, each time I want to share it across different platform. Is there no way to fix this issue?
Pictures viewed in Windows Photo Viewer are also off-colour, but I think that's because it's not colour managed... but that's a lesser concern.

I think I've figured out the colour management stuff in the secondary question, but the weird eyedropper issue is still happening. Could just be a quirk from working on things across multiple monitors, but I'm hoping someone might know if this is a bug/artifact.
Going to lay out what I inferred from my experiments regarding colour management in case other noobs like me run into the same frustrations as I did. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - the following are all based on observation.
General Explanation
A major source of my problems stem from my erroneous assumption that all browsers will use sRGB when rendering images. Apparently, most popular browsers today are colour-managed, and will use an image's embedded colour profile if it exists, and the monitor's colour profile if it doesn't. This was all well and good before I calibrated my monitors, because the profile attached to them by default were either sRGB or a monitor default that's close to it. While you can never guarantee consistency on other people's monitors, you can catch most cases by embedding a colour profile - even if it is sRGB. This forces colour-managed browsers to use sRGB to render your image, while non-colour-managed browsers will simply default to sRGB. sRGB seems to be the profile used by Windows Photo Viewer too, so images saved in other wider gamut colour spaces will look relatively drab when viewed in WPV versus a colour-managed browser.
Another key to figuring all this out was understanding how Profile Assignment and Conversion work, and the somewhat-related soft-proofing feature. Under Edit, you are given the option to either assign a colour profile to the image, or convert the image to another colour profile. Converting an image to a colour profile will replace the colour profile and perform colour compensations so that the image will look as physically close to the original as possible. Assigning a profile only replaces the colour profile but performs no compensations. The latter is simulated when soft-proofing (View > Proof Colors or ctrl/cmd-Y). I had followed bad advice and made the mistake of setting up my proofing to Monitor Color because this made images edited in Photoshop look identical when the same image is viewed in the browser, which was rendering my images with the Monitor's colour profile, which in turn stemmed from yet another bad advice I got against embedding profiles . This should formally answer Lundberg's bewilderment over my mention of soft-proofing against Monitor Colour.
Conclusion and Typical Workflow (aka TL;DR)
To begin, these are the settings I use:
Color Settings: I leave it default at North American General Purpose 2, but probably switch from sRGB to AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB so I can play in a wider gamut.
Proof Setup: I don't really care about this anymore because I do not soft-proof (ctrl/cmd-Y) in this new workflow.
Let's assume that I have a bunch of photographs I want to post online. RAWs usually come down in the AdobeRGB colour space - a nice, wide gamut that I'll keep while editing. Once I've made my edits, I save the source PSD to prep for export for web.
To export to web, I first Convert to the sRGB profile by going to Edit > Convert to Profile. I select sRGB as the destination space, and change the Intent to either Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric, depending on what looks best to me. This will convert the image to the sRGB colour space while trying to keep the colours as close to the original as possible, although some shift may occur to compensate for the narrower gamut. Next, go to Save for Web. The settings you'll use:
Embed Color Profile CHECKED
Convert to sRGB UNCHECKED (really doesn't matter since you're already in the sRGB colour space)
and Preview set to Internet Standard RGB (this is of no consequence - but it will give a preview of what the image will look like in the sRGB space)
That's it! While there might be a slight shift in colour when you converted from AdobeRGB to sRGB, everything from then on should stay consistent from Photoshop to the browser
Edit: Of course, if you'd like people to view your photos in glorious wide gamut in their colour-managed browsers, you can skip the conversion to sRGB and keep them in AdobeRGB. When Saving for Web, simply remember to Embed the Color Profile, DO NOT convert to sRGB, and set Preview to "Use Document Profile" to see what the image would look like when drawn with the embedded color profile

Strange sRGB soft-proofing behavior

I am wondering if the CMS gurus might have an idea about this:
I am using Photoshop CC, but had a similar experience with the previous version and on a different machine.
I have a wide gamut NEC monitor which has been profiled using i1 Display. The generated profile is selected in Windows as default profile. Everything seems OK with this side of things.
So I have a bitmap file with sRGB embedded profile, and my working space is sRGB. Colour appears correct in 'normal' editing view, i.e. PS is already adjusting what it is sending to the monitor based on the fact that it is an sRGB image. To confirm, I can look at the same graphic in Firefox with CMS switched on, and it looks the same as in Photoshop. And it looks "correct". Furthermore, if I soft-proof to "Monitor", what I see makes sense too. (Overly vibrant colours). And that's also visually consistent with looking at it in Firefox with CMS switched off.
So far so good. The fun begins when I ask PS to softproof the image to sRGB. Now, you might ask what would be the point of that, since in theory I'm already looking at it being rendered into sRGB colour space. Regardless, what I expect to happen is that soft-proofing to sRGB makes absolutely no difference to what I see. However this is not the case! The on-screen representation changes markedly... not only is it overly saturated but there is a colour shift as well! To make matters more confusing, when I use the Info box to show the raw and the softproof colour values, they are identical, as they should be. So the numbers seem OK, but the on-screen rendering is clearly wrong.
I also see a similar effect if I do a "convert to profile sRGB" with preview switched on. Up until I hit the OK button, the preview rendering is "wrong". Once the conversion completes (which did nothing because it was already in sRGB space) it renders as it did before.
I'm wondering if this is some kind of weird bug that happens when you softproof to the space you're already in?
MT

tozzy wrote:
it's very confusing behavior and leads you to wonder if there are other times when the on-screen CMS rendering behavior can't be trusted.
In my observation there are two forms of color-management implementation, both controlled by Adobe: The first is the traditional Adobe Color Engine as executed by the CPU - this is run if you have the [ ] Enable Graphics Processor setting unchecked or have it checked but are using Basic drawing mode in the Advanced Settings section. Phtotoshop also reverts to this CPU-resident color-management while you are moving a window and when you're using View - Gamut Warning.
The second form is executed by the GPU and is used when in Normal and Advanced drawing modes. This GPU implementation is presumably faster, but is also observably inaccurate under certain specific conditions. For example, if your document is in the ProPhoto RGB color space, it will show subtle color banding in a pure gray gradient.
The GPU-resident color management transforms have also been seen to add multi-value output level jumps, resulting in visible banding, in high bit depth gray gradients, where the CPU-resident code does not.
I reported these inaccuracies to Adobe some time ago, but either the GPU-resident color-management code is inscrutable or they just have other priorities, because the inaccuracies remain.
I just brought all this up, tozzy, since you mention the problem going away when the CPU-resident color-management code is invoked. To retain GPU acceleration for other things, but use CPU color-management, try using Basic drawing mode if you're concerned about getting the most accurate displays from color-management. Remember that you have to close and restart Photoshop after making changes in these settings.
-Noel

Display profiles and soft proofing Windows RGB / Monitor RGB

This might have asked before, but I did not find any definite answer for this. Sorry this gets a bit long.
Short question:
What's the difference between softproofing with Windows RGB and Monitor RGB targets? I see differences in my image between these targets.
Long question(s):
Here's some reasoning.. let me know when I go wrong.
I have hardware calibrated my display Spyder 3 elite to sRGB standard. I have understood that the generated display profile contains a LUT table that affects gamma values for each RGB component, so that affects both gamma and color temperature. That table is loaded into video card when Windows starts. In addition to the LUT table, the display profile contains what? Probably information on what color space the display has been calibrated to. Does that matches directly with the LUT table information, but may deviate from sRGB in the case my monitor cannot reproduce sRGB 100%?
Now if I have image that that is in sRGB, but the embedded sRGB profile has been stripped away, should any non color management aware image viewer show the colors properly, if it is assumed that 1) my monitor can handle full sRGB space and 2) my monitor was succesfully calibrated to sRGB and the LUT table has been loaded into video card?
Or does it still require a color management aware program to show the image, which implies that the LUT table information alone is not enough and the display profile contains some extra information that is needed to show the image correctly? I would think this is true, as I needed to turn on color management in Canon Zoom Browser to see images in it the same way as in Photoshop.
Now to the original question, what's the difference in Photoshop when soft proofing with Windows RGB and Monitor RGB targets
I read from www.gballard.net that
Photoshop can effectively "SoftProof" our web browser color:
Photoshop: View> Proof SetUp> Windows RGB
Photoshop's Soft Proof screen preview here simulates how unmanaged applications, web browsers, will display the file on 2.2 gamma monitors, based on the sRGB profile. If the file is based on sRGB and our monitor gamma is 2.2 and D/65 6500 degrees Kelvin, we should see very little shift here, which is the goal.
Photoshop: View> Proof SetUp> Monitor RGB
THIS IS WHERE the color-brightness-saturation problem will repeat consistantly.
Soft Proofing Monitor RGB here strips-ignores the embedded ICC profile and Assigns-Assumes-Applies the Monitor profile or color space.
The color and density changes seen here show the difference between the monitor profile and the source profile sRGB.
I'm not sure how to read that. Assume here that my monitor has been calibrated to sRGB and the PS working space sRGB. Do in both cases photoshop strip away color profile from the image at first? What happens after that? Does in Windows RGB case Photoshop pass the color values as they are to display? What does it do in "Monitor RGB" case then? Does it assign my monitor profile to the image? If it does, does there also happen conversion from one color space to another? In either one conversion there must happen as the soft proofing results are different. Does either one cause "double profiling" to the image as the monitor is already calibrated?
Thanks

Windows defaults to sRGB if you don't calibrate your monitor so untagged sRGB files should display (more or less) correctly in applications that don't know about color management on systems with uncalibrated monitors.
When proofing against Windows RGB you're proofing against sRGB, it will show you how applications that don't know about color management on an uncalibrated monitor will show the image. This is what you proof against if you want to see how the image will display in web browsers.
When you proof against Monitor RGB, Photoshop will assign your monitor's icc profile to the image which tends to be utterly useless most of the time.

Can I soft proof in LR4 like I can in PS CS5?

I haven't used LR 4 yet, but did view the soft-proofing tutorial.
I applaud Adobe for adding this functionality in LR4. It was one of the most obvious lacking features in the previous version, and I've still been mostly doing all my printing through PS CS5.
While soft-proofing is not a perfect replacement for test printing, I've been mostly satisfied with proofing in CS5.
Proofing in LR4 seems a little different, but by using a virtual copy it looks like if I use my printer/paper profile I should theoretically be able to not only be able to deal with color gamut issues, but also adjust contrast & brightness to more closely match my original developed image, and could compare the original with virtual copy in compare mode. Is it that simple? And if so, why is there a contrast & brightness adjustment in the Print module? That latter adjustment would be similar to what one goes through in PS CS5 when soft-proofing prior to printing. However, why have it if it can be done in the Develop module......and regardless, from the video tutorial it looks like you can't preview the image after making those adjustments in the print module nor compare it with the original......thus forcing one to make multiple prints until the result is satisfactory.
Just seems to me there is a bit more tweaking to do in LR4 to make the soft-proofing more functional. Or, perhaps I'm too stuck with the paradigm set forth for soft-proofing in PS and need someone to clarify how I can achieve the same result in LR just as confidently.

Beaulin Liddell wrote:
BTW, I've benefited immensly from your and Martin's Evenings books.......you've never steered me wrong.
Thanks for the kind words...but LR4's soft proofing is worth the effort to use. It really is better than Photoshop's soft proofing. I'm still on the fence regarding VCs vs Snapshots for soft proofing It's a tossup but the VC part has been built in while making a snapshot wasn't.
The advantage of LR4's soft proofing is you get the ability to do a Before/After while still using the full range of LR4's controls to adjust the printed version. Makes it really easy to nail great print (assuming you have good print profiles).
As for the Print module Brightness and Contradt...that's really a special case that doesn't involved color managed output. It's a crutch for those who don't have a locked down system. It's east to tweak but you have to make example prints since the controls don't actually display but only impact the output. I tend to avoid that.

Colour management of spot colour channels

Hello
I have some single layer images using cmyk (black only) + Pantone Process Blue U that will eventually be printed on a sheetfed offset press. A ballpark estimate would suffice for this low budget book, so I thought I'd give soft proofing a try. I'm therefore interested in understanding Photoshop's implementation of colour management for spot colour channels so as to have a less vague idea of the approximations this workflow involves.
Moreover, I'm stuck on exporting to pdf to let the client evaluate my conversions of the original rgb scans. Photoshop seems to layer an Euroscale Uncoated v2 overprinting image on top of a spot coloured image whose alternate colour space is "Calibrated RGB". What baffles me is that the pdfs display consistently in Acrobat 8 and 9 but rather differently from the Photoshop document.
Here come my questions:
1) Am I right in saying that these programs still don't support colour profiles involving spots? If so, are Adobe people willing to comment on the relevant intricacies?
2) Which colour profiles and colour conversions do Photoshop and Acrobat use to display such documents?
3) Which software tools will allow me to convert the Photoshop documents to an output profile for hard proofing?
4) Short of alternatives, when only K is needed and as long as each spot colour bears a decent resemblance to a cmy primary, how well will the profiling software deal with a cmyk target printed substituting the inks on press?
Thank you very much for your help.
Giordano

As far as I know …
1) Photoshop uses the Spot setting from your Color Settings (Edit – Color Settings) to display spot channels (and one can use gray-profiles or the K-channel of CMYK-profiles for that); the Solidity one can set manually, but one should bear in mind that even a 100% solid spot channel does not knock out the process channels.
As for the actual physical properties of the color and its mixing with the other colors I’m afraid Photoshop produces a pretty rough simulation – profiles for more than four colors are considerably more complicated and would, if I’m not mistaken, preclude much of Photoshop’s functionality.
2) If you pass unprofiled Files between programs they will be displayed using the programs’ respective Color Settings.
And your screen profile will be employed in the process naturally … but you might want to read up on color management if you want to know more about all that.
As to why the display differs between Acrobat and Photoshop it would appear that Acrobat use the RGB-setting for displaying spots and not an extra setting like Photoshop.
3) Photoshop is capable of separating files – but I may not understand what you’re driving at.
4) Epson-proofers using the latest generation of inks for example have a fairly wide gamut and should be able to simulate a lot of Pantone colors, so you might want to contact your provider to make sure if such a workaround is necessary at all.

Soft Proofing?

For those here who are having success with their printing. What if anything are you doing about lack of soft proofing in LR.
My current situation is, I get acceptable prints only 50% of the time. Everything is color managed of course and I'm printing to Epson R2400 using Velvet Fine Art Paper and Epson current icc profiles.
What happens is I can make Develop adjustments to two similar images and when I print one comes out fine and the other does not.
Following advise of others I have set up presets for my printing and still check settings after clicking print button. All appears good but result are unpredictable.
I have managed to get some very nice prints on VFA paper so I know it's possible. Just seems like something in the settings is not sticking from one print to the next. Any thoughts on this issue? Like many others here I can print from Aperture or PS with 100% perfect results every time.
I have tried doing preview after starting the print dialog (osx) but the previews are always very oversaturated and very bright. I understand from reading elsewhere that OSX preview is not reliable. I've also tried printing to pdf first and opening in Acrobat however the result is still bright and oversaturated but not as much as the preview version.
I really want to stick with LR but this unpredictable printing thing is making it tough for me to do so. Trying to get consistent prints has so far cost me almost as much in paper/ink as I paid for LR. Since print output is my main goal it's important to me that I get this working. Otherwise LR will become a doorstop.
For the record: (in case Andrew Rodney weights in) I'm shooting with a Nikon D200, Raw in AdobeRGB, Macbook Pro with monitor calibrated with spyder2, using paper/ink icc profiles from Epson (I know their canned, but their the same ones used in PS with perfect results)in LR for my R2400 printer connected directly to my Macbook Pro using firewire.
Is there something I'm missing?
THH

"P.S. when a print comes out bad is always muddy, blocked up in the shadows and somewhat washed out overall(looks like its foggy). Is that a clue to anything?"
It's a clue that your image needs the contrast range of a glossy paper vs a watercolor paper...or that you need to go into the shadows to "open" them up so they print.
The d-max of a glossy paper (like Luster) can hit 2.39/2.4 on Luster but a watercolor paper can only hit 1.7 or so d-max. What that means is that between max white (paper white) and max black )d-max) a watercolor paper is gonna plug up from the midtones down to the shadows...black will be black which is the d-max.
And yes, having a soft proof function in Lightroom would greatly aid in evaluating how much "opening" of the shadows you need to do. Which is why I tend to round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop back to Lightroom very important fine art type prints. While in Photoshop, I can take advantage of local tone/color corrections while doing sharpening and image enhancements such as a mid-tone contrast adjustment, saving the -EDIT file back into Lightroom for printing. While in Photoshop (before saving) I will softproof using the paper profile I'll be using and add an ajustment layer or two (usually a curve and a Hue&Sat adjustment).
The imprtant factor here is to separate out problems using Lightroom functionality such as not using OS X saved presets, remembering to update LR templates and using the correct settings to print from issues of printing difficult to print images on low d-max papers.

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)...

Costco and soft proofing show dull washed out image

OK, so I am trying to utilize my nearest costco to print some images from lightroom 5. I am getting back dull washed out prints.
Facts:
I shoot in RAW in manual mode
I am using sRGB when I do my post processing
I export to jpg for printing
I used the costco LR5 plugin from Alloyphoto to upload to Costco
I have installed the printer profiles from drycreek for the specific location/printer and have chosen the correct profile as I export
I made sure that I chose to have Costco NOT autocorrect the color
Even when I use LR5's soft proofing, I get the same result on my monitor
I checked the print I got back and it says that they did NOT autocorrect (taken with a grain of salt)
The machine they are using is a Noritsu QSS-A, so I know my profile is correct
I have attached a screen shot of what I am seeing.
Why am I seeing this on my soft proofing as well as my prints?
How can I solve this and get vibrant prints?
Any advice would be helpful.
Message was edited by: moviebuffking

moviebuffking wrote:
I have calibrated my monitor as good as I can get without specific hardware. I have 18 years experience calibrating monitors (via optical media and my eyes), so I know that mine is very close.
It is virtually impossible to "accurately" set the Luminance, Gamma, and Color temperature "by eye." This is most likely the cause of your prints not matching the screen image you see in LR. That being the monitor's Luminance (i.e. Brightness) level is too set to high.
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/colour_management/prints_too_dark.html
To see if this could be your problem I downloaded the posted screen shot and cropped out the 'Copy' image, which has your adjustments applied to it. Here are my results:
Click on image to see full-size
I needed to apply a full F stop (+1.0 EV) of Exposure correction to achieve a good midtone brightness level for the print image. You'll notice I also added -50 Highlights and +50 Shadows along with +25 Vibrance. I bet the image with my adjustments added looks way too bright on your uncalibrated monitor.
You have two (2) issues–Monitor Calibration and LR Basic Panel Control Adjustments
Monitior Calibration
I would highly recommend investing in a hardware monitor calibrator such as the X-Rite i1 Display and ColorMunki, or Datacolor Spyder models. If you tell me what make and model monitor you are using I can recommend specific calibrators.
Temporarily you can try adjusting the monitor "by eye" to get it closer to the desired 120cd/m2 Luminance, 2.2 Gamma, and 6500K Color Temperature using the test patterns at this site:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
When the monitors Brightness and Contrast controls have been correctly set the screen image should look much closer to the prints you have recently made with the LR Soft Proof adjustments. So in fact you will be adjusting the monitor to make it look bad with the LR adjustments you applied. The proper monitor settings will make the Lagom test patterns look correct AND should make your bad Costco prints now match the screen image using you original LR settings.
After changing the monitor's Brightness and Contrast settings try readjusting a few of the image files you had printed and send them to Costco as check prints. Compare them again to your monitor's screen image. They should be much better!
LR Basic Panel Tone Control Adjustment
LR's PV2012 Tone controls can provide much improvement to your raw image Highlight and Shadow detail. Start with all of the Tone controls at their '0' default settings and adjust them from the top-down in the order shown below.
1. Set Exposure for the midtone brightness ignoring the highlight and shadow areas for now. Setting Exposure about +.5 EV higher than what looks correct for the midtones seems to work best with most images.
2. Leave Contrast at 0 for now. You’ll adjust this after the first pass.
3. Adjust Highlights so that blown out areas are recovered and “fine tonal detail” is revealed.
4. Adjust Shadows to reveal fine detail in dark areas. For most normal images simply setting -Shadows = +Highlights (Example -50 and +50) works very well.
5. The Whites control sets the white clipping point, which you can see by holding down the ALT key as you move the slider. Adjust it to the point where you see clipping just appear with the ALT key.
6. The Blacks control sets the black clipping point, which you can see by holding down the ALT key as you move the slider. Adjust it to the point where you see clipping just appear with the ALT key.
7. Now go back and adjust the Contrast control to establish the best midtone contrast.
8. Lastly touchup the Exposure control for the best midtone brightness.
9. If necessary “touch-up” the controls using the same top-down workflow.
moviebuffking wrote:
Am I correct in assuming that the soft proof (with a certain profile) is a "preview" of what that print will look like?
Soft Proof does two things. It shows you what the image's colors will look like in the target color space (i.e. printer profile). You can see what (if any) colors are "out of gamut" by clicking on the small icon in the upper-righthand corner of the Histogram. You can also see if any of the colors fall out of your monitor's gamut by clicking on the small icon in the upper-lefthand corner of the Histogram.
When you check 'Simulate Paper & Ink' the Soft Proof image's contrast and color saturation are changed to make it look closer to what the "reflective" print image will look like when held next to the monitor for comparison. Many people have difficulty using 'Simulate Paper & Ink' since it requires using precise light levels for viewing the print and a well calibrated monitor.
In summary my best suggestion is to purchase and use a good hardware monitor calibrator on a scheduled basis to insure you have an "accurate" screen image inside LR and other color managed applications like PS.

Preview: Colour management/soft proofing?

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