Soft Proofing Question

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

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Rendering intent when displaying, exporting or soft proofing?

I am trying to make use of soft proofing to adjust my images for a given output device for which I have ICC profiles. The two profiles I am playing with are for a Lambda and a Fuji Frontier. The Lambda working space almost fits within Adobe RGB, it exceeds it in only a few places but is noticeably smaller for a number of other colors. The Frontier working space is for most colors a bit smaller than the Lambda and about equal for only a small number of colors. The Frontier working space would also almost fit into sRGB (to give you an impression of its size).
When soft proofing with Aperture, dark greens desaturate more with the larger Lambda working space than with Frontier one. If the rendering intent were relative colorimetric, colors should be clipped more and limited by the smaller working space of the Frontier. If perceptual is used then colors would in general be somewhat more compressed (ie, desaturated) with the smaller Frontier working space. But I see rather the opposite. In short, neither explanation makes sense.
So I tried exporting from Aperture into Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB hoping that both would be big enough to contain most of the internal gamut of Aperture in order not to require much compression or clipping when converting from the internal color space of Aperture (I saw no difference between Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB in the exported files, so I guess both are large enough for my purposes). And I then converted/soft proofed these files from Photoshop into my two output profiles. More options (different rendering intents, black point compensation) but none seemed to really match what Aperture was soft proofing. I still have a lot of ideas what to try out but if anybody could shed some light on rendering intents and soft proofing with Aperture, it would be very much appreciated.
(A related question, what rendering intent is used when converting colors, let's say defined in the Lab space in Photoshop, to the screen? I guess this is defined in the monitor profile, which in turn is created by the monitor calibration software, and therefore might depend on the latter. I would guess some kind of perceptual, but how the colors are really fitted and converted from the larger Lab color space into the smaller monitor one might very noticeably been different calibration software and will be different again for the monitor profile supplied by Apple.)

I went on about this a little more scientific by creating an image with three rectangles: red, blue and green.
All of them are 100%, e.g. (255, 0, 0). Colorspace: ProPhoto RGB.
Results when exporting the images to AdobeRGB and sRGB, concentrating on the reds:
- sRGB looks very washed out
- AdobeRGB looks a bit washed out
- Original ProPhoto has so much red that it almost drives me nuts
Now, I would really expect similar results when activiating soft proofing.
But when selecting either AdobeRGB or sRGB, the reds always drive me nuts.
There is just no difference at all to the original ProPhoto image!
Conclusion 1: Dorin, you were right, previews are in AdobeRGB. What I saw in the reds was the difference between ProPhoto and AdobeRGB. Somehow my screen seems to have extreme reds (calibrated recently with an X-Rite ColorMunki Display).
Conclusion 2: Soft proofing with AdobeRGB and sRGB really DOES NOT WORK!

Convert to Profile & Soft Proofing.

Hello,
Apologies if this has been asked and answered. Some answers on soft proofing searched on the forums helped, but didn't hit the nail on the head.
I'm grateful for ideas, instruction, pointers.
I. Per the instructions of the printer who's printing my work, I've converted my image profiles to Dot Gain 20%. I would like to make sure that what I'm seeing on my screen will a) be a close match to what she (the woman printing the work) will see on her screen; and b) give me a sense of how the printer (Espson Stylist Pro 4800) will interpret and print the work. It makes sense to me that I should change my Proof Setup to Dot Gain 20%, no? Do I have this wrong?
II. I also need to make a set of jpegs that will be seen on a variety of screens, each of a different make and calibration. These jpegs need to be as convincing a match to the print as possible, with allowances, of course being made for paper, ink, etc. The match has to be close. Is there a standard for softproofing that will allow me to see what's likely to appear on a given screen. A tall order, I know. Wondering if I should just inform the viewers to view the jpegs with their monitors set to a certain color profile--or if I should send them a monitor profile along with the jpegs.
Again, I'm grateful for ideas.
Best-
Gear: iMac 27"; Native Gamma 2.2; CS6.

I've converted my image profiles to Dot Gain 20%. I would like to make sure that what I'm seeing on my screen will a) be a close match to what she (the woman printing the work) will see on her screen
if YOUR monitor profile is proper, Photoshop is 'accurately' displaying your image
to see your image the same, SHE (or anyone) will need to apply your source profile and also have a proper monitor profile
give me a sense of how the printer (Espson Stylist Pro 4800) will interpret and print the work. It makes sense to me that I should change my Proof Setup to Dot Gain 20%, no? Do I have this wrong?
Gernot offers a good approach (what I would recommend):
"Leave images in sRGB (Working Space sRGB)
Modify by PhS until the appearance is nice
In Soft Proof choose your PP"
in other words, "Soft Proofing" (View> Proof Setup> Custom: Device to Simulate: the specific Epson profile) -- it doesn't make much sense to Soft Proof source DotGain20% to device DotGain20%
my question to her would be: is Dot Gain 20% the actual Epson Print Space (or does she use a specific printer-paper-ink profile that you can Soft Proof on your 'calibrated' monitor)
if she doesn't do any conversions to your DotGain20 file (it is the Print Space), then Photoshop is showing you the contract proof on your monitor when you open it (is my opinion)
I also need to make a set of jpegs that will be seen on a variety of screens, each of a different make and calibration. These jpegs need to be as convincing a match to the print as possible
here, i would Convert to sRGB and embed the sRGB profile -- short answer here -- that is the best you can do

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.

Soft Proofing: Setting Output Levels

In Uwe Steinmueller's Fine Art Printing book a very interesting workflow concept is presented that involves assessing shadow and highlight thresholds for specific output combinations and then making a compensating adjustment for the print to maintain detail at either end. A test strip (ramps from RGB0, RGB1, RGB2 etc and RGB 255, RGB254, RBG253 etc) is generated using the desired printer/ink/paper and you identify where shadow and highlight details are no longer differentiated between adjacent levels. You than transfer those settings to the output values in a Levels adjustment layer for your print. Shadows are rendered at the blackest point possible for that printer/ink/paper combo and maintain detail from there, likewise for the highlights through paper white. It works really well and takes value of the media's full dynamic range.
This would prove to be a great addition to the soft proofing function, or in general as an addition to the Tone Curve panel: boxes where you could manually input shadow and highlight output values in the same manner as a Levels adjustment layer. You can accomplish this now by just moving the shadow endpoint up and highlight endpoint down but involves more trial and error. Even showing the output value as you slide those endpoints (in the same manner that you see RGB values when moving the curve) would be welcome.

Jay Mitchosky wrote:
Does current color management remap RGB 0,0,0 to the maximum black registestered in the profile, and RGB 255 to paper white? It's an interesting question I hadn't thought of, but the process above does seem to work.
It (the profile) should. And ideally, 1/1/1 would have some measurable difference on the print from 0/0/0 the max black. But like your comment above, we’re not at that point yet, certainly on a heck of a lot of output devices.

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.

Change Default Soft Proof Color – Illustrator CS5.1

Short Question:
How to change the default soft color proof setting in Illustrator CS5.1?
Backstory:
Every time a document is opened in Illustrator CS5.1, it defaults to Working CMYK soft color proof. For those that work in web, the default soft proof color space of CMYK results in dull colors. This means that every time a new document is opened, the soft color proof settings need to be changed manually. There's got to be a way to change the default soft color proof settings in Illustrator? I know it's possible in Photoshop already.
Many Thanks!

You could try if either a custom Workspace or Document profile does the trick:
http://blogs.adobe.com/infiniteresolution/2009/05/startup_profiles_a_great_tool.html

Soft-proof images

This question was posted in response to the following article: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/lightroom/using/WS2bacbdf8d487e582-5591e4a41341ae6cc6d-8000.ht ml

Thank you, THANK YOU for Julieanne's video as a part of your explanation here. If I were to try and understand better about 'soft proofing' images in advance of export to print by simply reading the text here I'd go cross-eyed trying to digest it precisely. This is a problem I have found with most of Adobe's (LR and PS) Product Support pages (as well as most of its 'Classroom in a Book' content, unfortunately the default "textbook" used by much of Academia). To be fair, Adobe seems to be focused on "explaining" pretty complex topics with the fewest possible words. (Who wants to read these days?! Such a chore, eh?) With Julieanne's video though she explains everything you might ever care to know about soft proofing – its utility, features in LR that will assist in bringing images back into gamut for WHATEVER specific surface one intends to work with for their final product printed – and WHY. She has always been, continues to be The Very Best in explaining the complexities of working with this great application. Thanks for including the screencast!

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.

Adjustments for soft proofing to avoid washed out look

Hi, I've downloaded and installed my photo lab's printing profile. When I soft proof, everything looks washed out and lacks defnition. Blacks look gray and have little detail. Kind of an overall washed out look. I've tried adjusting contrast and saturation, but am underwhelmed with the results. What are the proper steps and areas of adjustment to try and achieve a closer match between the soft proof usng the lab's profile and my calibrated montior? Specific steps and areas of adjustment would help. I know the photo lab's printer gamut and paper makes the difference, but am left thinking there's a simpler way to adjust the photos for best results.
Thanks!

Hi, thanks for the suggestion, but you misunderstood my question. The profile is correct, the soft proofing is working as designed, the question is what controls/adjustments can I make in Aperture to adjust the photo to reduce this washed out look prior to sending the photos out to print. What Aperture adjustments have users found to correct for printer/paper/ink deficiencies? - L

Beta 4 Soft Proofing

I’m getting results from Soft Proofing I don’t understand and can’t find any reference to anywhere.
With different ink/paper/printer combinations and different Relative/Perceptual combinations, I get the following results when selecting “Destination Gamut Warning.”
Yellow border: Purple Out of Gamut
Yellow border: Red Out of Gamut
Yellow border: Yellow Out of Gamut
White border: Red Out of Gamut
Does anyone know what these differences mean?
Wil

During the beta period, please post LR4-specific questions in the LR4-specific forum:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/lightroom4

Soft Proofing Question

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