Soft-Proofing missing

Hi All,
The only thing holding me back on Lightroom right now is the lack of soft-proofing. Any one have any ideas for a solution that don't involve round tripping to photoshop. All my printing is fine art so it gets expensive to do test prints to check for color etc.
Tim

As I pointed out in my original post, I'm a Fine Art Photographer. So proofing is important to me. I'm always amazed by someone you say's they get acceptable prints without color management. That has never been my experience. I run a fully color managed workflow. Maybe I should try without it. I've never been a big fan of PS blot so was hoping to be able to get by on LR alone. For the record I'm one of those who "takes" pictures rather then "makes" pictures. Mot a purist, just try to get it right in the camera.
Lee, are you shooting raw or jpg? sRGB or Adobe(1998)
Geoff, This is at least the third time I've posted this question. Only when I complain about lack of responses do I even get any. Not impatient just confused by lack of responses to valid question when I see multiple responses to silly banter elsewhere.

Similar Messages

  • [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 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 with .icc color profiles

    Hello!
    I'm currently working on a book in InDesign. I've calibrated my monitor with X-rite, and have installed an .icc profile from my outside printer (Blurb Books). Of course when I use it to soft-proof, I see a change on my monitor, so if I dion't like what I see (how it will print), I would have to go back to my working space and make changes, etc and keep rechecking. This seems so weird to me yet nowhere in all the forums and internet have I run across an answer to my question:
    Why not just work entirely in this .icc profile so one doesn't have to go back and forth? You'd see immediately what you're going to get, even though it may not look as pretty on the monitor set in another color space?
    It seems so obvious to me that I know I must be missing something here (as I usually do the obvious), as no-one has addressed it that I can find, anywhere, even Blurb support. They don't even understand what I'm asking!
    thanks!

    In fact, that is one perfectly valid method of working, and I would not have a problem at all using that profile as the working space in ID (I have a number of printer supplied profiles that I rotate, depending onthe destination of the job).  But there's a downside to working on images in a device-specific output space. It limits your ability to use the same image in multiple output scenarios, and many (most) output profiles have a smaller gamut (sometimes significantly smaller) than a device-independent RGB space like Adobe RGB, so you lose some colors. That's going to happen no matter what when you convert for output, but if you do your editing and save in the output space, those losses are permanent, even if you later want to ooutput on a different device with larger gamut capability. Profile-to-profile conversion never adds new colors.

  • 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

  • Soft proofing to send to online printer

    Its my understanding that LR 1.0 doesnt support soft proofing. To that end, I'm hoping someone will have some suggestions for me. I use an online printer for all of my customer's prints. I'm coming from Aperture with a mix of Capture NX. Both of those progams have the ability to soft proof with the online printers' profile so that I can 'see' what I'm going to be getting back during the adjustments process of my workflow. I absolutely love everything about LR so far. However, I can't seem to get my head around a workflow that will allow me to 'soft proof' using LR as my base program to ensure that I'll be getting back what I see on my screen.
    Does anyone have any suggestions for me??
    I'm using a Mac with LR 1.0. I also have Capture NX, and PSE 4 for MAC.
    Thanks guys (and gals)

    I suppose some people will tell you that you don't need soft proofing if you have good color management. But its probably another function that LR is missing.
    I do most of my printing in qimage, which is probably better than the LR print module. It has soft proofing and costs about $50. It also has better resampling and sharpening than LR.
    I'm not a pro but a lot of pros seem to like it.

  • What happened to the soft proof function for printing???

    What happened to the soft proof function for printing???

    Edward Sozinho wrote:
    Thanks Jim.  It's no longer located there.  I miss spoke I'm running Lightroom CC now.
    Then you must not be seeing the toolbar. Press the letter T to display the toolbar. I'm using Lightroom CC.

  • Printer Soft Proofing Question

    In CS-5 if you wanted to do a soft proof one of the choices to check was gamma warning.  In CS6 my gamma warning cannot be selected  It is there under my picture but is not lit up.  Is this the way it is suppose to be or is there something I am missing?  Also, there is not a choice of soft proofing only hard proofing.  Is the the one I want?  I am using a PC so don't know if it is different for a Mac.
    Nancy

    all there in CS6.
    if you speak about the printer dialog.. when you check "match color" you can activate the gamut warning.
    but i don´t really see the usefulness of using the print dialog preview for softproofing.

  • 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.
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    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.
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    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.

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