Soft Proof in LR: Put it in LR!

I must have (like that, must have?) soft proofing abilities in LR if I am going to be able to use LR for preparing images for printing.
Cheers

Soft-proof was first introduced in LR4. You can download the free trial to see if it's what you hoping for. I don't use it so I don't know much but from what I've heard you can only proof RGB profile but not CMKY. Hope this help.

Similar Messages

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.

Soft Proofing: View Proof Setup Custom: Profile Disappears when Re-opened

Photoshop CS6 on Mac
Edit an image file and get it to where I like on the monitor
Duplicate the file and set the new file to the profile for the printer which will be used, by using View > Proof Setup > Custom and setting an imported printer profile for the printing company that I use.
As soon as you do that, the file looks like crap, so...
Edit the soft proof file to get it to where it looks good again.
Save off the file for the printer and also save the new PSD file.
Close the PSD file.
Reopen the new (soft proofed) PSD file.
Still looks good, but.... when you check View > Proof Setup it's now generally set to Custom: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 instead of to the imported printer profile which was set previously. WHY???? Where did the printer profile go? Is it supposed to do this?
If I then reset View > Proof Setup to the correct printer profile, the image goes to crap again.
Is this me doing something wrong, or is the PSD file not properly remembering the printer profile, or... what's going on here?
Thanks much!

None of what you write makes any sense whatsoever to me, sorry.
Let's start by using correct terminology. For the last time, you are not "importing" any freaking profile. Wrap your head around that once and for all, please.
Let me try once again, totally disregarding the scenarios you were unsuccessfully attempting to describe above. Forget all that mumbo jumbo for now, please.
You have not mentioned what your working space is, so let's assume it's Adobe RGB.
You have finished editing an image, so now you have an AdobeRGB-tagged image. Fine.
Now you want to soft proof it to see what it will look like in that FujiWonderPrinterInAlaskaUsingMatteThaiElephantPoopPaper printer in Anchorage. (Made up names of course.)
So you make a duplicate COPY of your finished image file named BabyPictForPrint.psd. You're still in Adobe RGB, of course. You put the original away in a safe and forget about it—forever. That's like your negative in film days.
Now you soft proof the BabyPictForPrint.psd COPY by using the infamous FujiWonderPrinterInAlaskaUsingMatteThaiElephantPoopPaper.icc profile the outfit in Alaska sent you.
When you soft proof it with that Alaska profile, you have not imported anything. Photoshop is simply using the profile you pointed it to to show you in your monitor what it would look like. Your pixels so far are untouched, yet yo see your image "die" before your very eyes. Ouch! Now you need to compensate for the effect of printing under those proposed conditions, so you set about the task of editing the copy accordingly. Remember, you're still in Adobe RGB.
Once you have the copy just the way you like it, YOU SAVE ALL YOUR CHANGES in that copy. Now you have a fully edited image file in the Adobe RGB space but tweaked to look fine when printed in the FujiWonderPrinterInAlaskaUsingMatteThaiElephantPoopPaper printer.
At that point you are done! Finished!
Now you are faced with two choices:
A) Sending the finished, saved ADOBE RGB COPY to your printer if you consider him capable of knowing what he's doing. (If you think he does not know his business, look for another printer). Or…
B) Assume you're dealing with a moron on the other end who wants the image CONVERTED to his custom FujiWonderPrinterInAlaskaUsingMatteThaiElephantPoopPaper.icc. If that is the case, then open your COPY in Photoshop, go to the Edit menu > CONVERT to Profile… and convert the copy to the infamous FujiWonderPrinterInAlaskaUsingMatteThaiElephantPoopPaper.icc profile. It's critical to use CONVERT TO Profile, not "Assign Profile"!
At that point, under scenario B), you do not EVER want to return to Proof View / Soft Proof mode, ever, EVER again, because then you would be applying the profile doubly and you'd see your image die before your eyes once again, and if you edited it you'd have real elephant poop!
Hope that helps.

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 CMYK in LR 5.2?

ACR 8.1 allows CC users to soft proof in CMYK and LAB color spaces. LR 5.2 will have ACR 8.2 capabilities, so will we be able to soft proof in these spaces as well?

What a shame. The only book vendor option we have from within LR is Blurb, which uses CMYK printers and provides a CMYK profile for soft proofing. The only way to soft proof with this profile, however, is to use Photoshop, but you then convert back to RGB when you return to LR, so thre is no point of going through that routine.
Clearly Adobe recognizes the importance of soft proofing, and put that capability into LR. Clearly Adobe recognizes that many LR users would like to produce books, and put that capability into LR. Somehow Adobe failed to connect the dots and did not provide the capability to softproof book projects being sent to the only print vendor available in the book module.
What exactly is Jeff's reply saying? Jeff says it "won't" happen, which might mean that it could happen, but for some reason Adobe has decided that having this capability in LR would not be beneficial to Adobe in some way. I can't imagine how CMYK capability in LR would affect sales of other Adobe products, so that explanation seems unlikely.
Perhaps Adobe thinks that LR users would be confused by having the CMYK space available to use. However, we have the option of chosing from among three RGB color spaces now, so how would a fourth space be a problem for us? Besides, I don't think that LR users are less capable than Photoshop users (in fact, there is a lot of overlap), so if it can be understood in PS it can be understood in LR. Hence, that explanation also seems unlikely.
Perhaps Adobe is trying to maintain a clear distinction between its "professional" products, which have greater techincal capabilites, and its, for lack of a better term, "consumer" products, which do not need to be so capable. LR doesn't get CMYK because it is intended for customers who don't need it (although they send us to a book printer that only uses CMYK printers). Of course, Adobe realizes that many LR users are professional photographers who have prints made in high-end print shops that use CMYK printers, just like Blurb does, so that explanation is just as unlikely as the first two.
Perhaps Jeff misspoke, and meant to say that it can't happen, not that it won't happen. That is, that there is some technical reason why LR can't use the CMYK color space. This seems very, very unlikely, although if somebody is aware of such limitations to LR, perhaps they could explain them to us.
The bottom line at this point, unless there is more information on why LR can't have CMYK capabilities, is that Adobe has made the decision, and that is that, and we have to live with it. Sort of like the Creative Cloud.

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.

Soft proofing: how to A/B?

Hi all,
I'm kinda new to soft proofing, so maybe this is a silly question, but here goes:
My workflow for printing is that i first tweak my photos so they look like how i want them on my computer monitor, for uploading to Flickr.
After that i choose the one(s) i want to print (Epson 3880) and go into "soft proofing" mode.
After i've tweaked the photo to compensate for the print, i want to A/B with my original. What i've noticed is that i need to generally add a bit more brightness and vibrance to approach (on physical paper) what i see on my computer screen, so i want to be able to A/B between my original photo and the proof copy.
But the thing is, when i do this the "soft proofing" module remains engaged for both my proof copy (that's ok) and for my original photo (not ok!) which was tweaked to look good on the computer and never meant to be printed, and on which i never did any soft proofing!!!
This makes it really hard to A/B between the two copies.
So why doesn't the soft proofing module automatically turn off when you switch to another photo on which you haven't done any soft proofing?
Hmmm, clear as mud methinks!
But does anyone see what i mean and could offer any tips?
Thanks! ......... D

Daz V wrote:
So why doesn't the soft proofing module automatically turn off when you switch to another photo on which you haven't done any soft proofing?
Soft Proofing "simulates" on your computer display (transmissive) what the print copy (reflective) will look like in your hands. The two are radically different in contrast ratio, black level, and white level achievable, so it makes little sense to try and compare the two. They will always look quite different. The goal is to adjust web based images so they look good onscreen, and print based images with 'Soft Proof' so they look good in the actual reflective light viewed print copy. What are you trying to achieve?
You can view them side-by-side by windowing LR and your browser and viewing the image in both at the same time. In fact that would be much close to reality, since browsers aren't always properly color managed. Two separate displays would be even better for this purpose.

Is It Possible to Save a Soft-Proofed File?

Let's assume that I have an image, foo.psd, open in PSCS4. I softproof the image for a particular paper and printer. When I hit Ctrl-Y, the image is shown in softproof mode, and the softproofing info is appended to the image name in the PSCS4 window. Is there any way to save a copy of foo.psd with the soft proofing applied, i.e. foo-softproof.psd?
Reed

Reed,
a print looks often different to the monitor. Quite normal
- many monitor colors cannot be printed.
They are out-of gamut for the printing CMYK space.
The RGB image data are converted via the RGB profile
to Lab, which is large enough to represent real world
photos without loss.
From Lab the data are converted to CMYK via the CMYK
profile. Here is loss because of the smaller gamut.
The colors have to be mapped from the larger RGB gamut
into the smaller CMYK gamut. This can be done
a) automatically by Rendering Intent Relative Colorimetric:
in-gamut colors are not changed. Out-of-gamut colors
are mapped to the gamut boundary; this process isn't
accurately defined by standards.
b) automatically by Rendering Intent Perceptual:
all colors - even those which were in-gamut - are
shifted towards the gray axis. This process depends
very much on the scientist or programmer and is nowhere
defined by standards.
So far one doesn't need human interaction, but the results
are not always pleasing. The third and optimal method is
c) image based gamut compression. Reduce the saturation
and eventually rotate the hue in regions which are out-
of-gamut until Photoshop's Proof Color Gamut Warning
doesn't show larger out-of-gamut areas.
Gamut compression algorithms and the color science behind
are explained in this excellent book:
Jan Morovic (accents omitted)
Color Gamut Mapping
John Wiley & Sons, 2008
Manual image based gamut compression is demonstrated here
by many examples (but it's called 'Editing in Lab'):
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/labproof15092008.pdf
Attention: 3.4 MBytes.
Chapter 9 shows visualized gamut boundaries for several
color spaces.
IMO you're seeking the impossible (if I'm understanding
you correctly).
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

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.

Soft proofing in Lightroom

In Aperture (dare I mention it?) there is a "View" setting for soft proofing. You input your printer model and paper and the display changes to the actual colors the printer will output. It comes pretty close. I can't find such a setting in Lightroom.
Canon 20D, Intel iMac 20, HP 7160, monitor frequently calibrated with a Spyder2 Pro, Lightroom V1.
If I import a photo from the camera into Lightroom, the colors on the monitor are quite different from the object shot. If I do NO editing at all, just print, the colors on the print are quite close to those of the subject though a long way from the monitor picture.
This is no help at all if I want to edit the photo in Lightroom...

Yeah...LR lacks soft proofing presently.

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.

Soft proofing quit working in 4.2 update

the Cloud just updated my Photoshop CC to 14.2 and now the soft proofing feature doesn't work properly. It slows the machine to a crawl and only shows unlinked blocks of proofs. It was working fine inm the last version.
Thanks anyone for helping

I am having the same problem with Apple TV 2 - My children's movies are showing all songs. Comedy movies the same.
I have changed 8 movies (meta tags) and call them kids movies, go to the Apple TV2 and shows all songs. When I update the genre and called the movies genres "business" it seems to fix it. I don't see any rime or reason.
I can't understand it - never had this problem with Apple TV 1
Thoughts?
I just bought the Apple TV and it was on 4.2 and now I am on 4.22

Soft proofing in LR 4

I purchsed and downloaded LR 4 online. In the Develop Modue when I want to soft-proof. I press 'S' to get the soft proof menu but do not have the soft-proof box under the image that I see in ALL the examples when going through tutorials. I tried closing LR and restarting computer, doesn't help.

Hit the T key to toggle showing/hiding the toolbar...

Can you soft proof for Blurb in Lightroom? Can't get Blurb icc to show up in list.

I have added the Blurb_ICC_Profile.icc to Library/ColorSync/Profiles and Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Recommended, but when I turn on Soft Proof in Lightroom and try to select the Blurb_ICC_Profile.icc from the Profile dropdown in the Soft Proofing Workspace on the right, clicking on other to add it, it simply does not show up as an item in the list even though I have added it to the Profiles folder.
The Blurb profile does show up as an option for soft proofing if I try to do it in Photoshop, but I really want to do it in Lightroom to save time since I'm using the Book Module and I know Lightroom so much better than Photoshop.

Yes. I found another discussion on a blog that discussed the whole thing in detail. Has anyone found a profile that comes close that one could use in LR to soft proof for Blurb? Some said they used sRGB, but I compared and there is a huge disparity. Blurb color space is about 2/3 smaller than sRGB.

Soft Proof in LR: Put it in LR!

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