Soft Proofing - Thank you!

I've had just a few minutes to play with the soft proffing tool that is now a part of the develop module and I must say that I am very impressed.  This appears to be a well thought-out addition to LR.  I particularly like the out-of-gamut warnings for both monitor and printer.  The Create Proof Copy feature is brilliant.
That's enough praise - I will save my ******* for another post.

Yes, the softproofing implementation in Lightroom 4makes it very easy to use, understand and organize, thanks to the softproof virtual copies.
I always managed, in the past, to stay away from softproofing, and now I'm delighted to use it,
Please note that there is a filter/dynamic collection criteria to search and collect all softproof virtual copies.
Rgds, Gilles.

Similar Messages

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • LR4: Soft Proofing Batches Of Unique Pictures?

    Hi.  I was wondering if there is a way to do batch processing for soft proofing different pictures similar to the sync functionality?  I created a customer user preset however it seems to copy over the existing settings vs updating the +/-'s in the different areas. For example, I have a bunch of photos from different scenarios, events, actions, times, etc..
    When I am soft proofing to a custom profile, looks like I just need to apply a few universal tweaks to WB (+100), exposure (+20, maybe +30), contrast (+10), blacks (-10), and clarity (+10, maybe +15) to get the soft proof copy to look like the master copy.  Then I can quickly go through the soft proof copies and check.  Is there a way of doing this?
    Also, is there a way of creating a soft proof copy of all the pics in the develop module at once?
    Thanks in advance for your help.
    Cheers,
    George

    smilingcdn@yahoo wrote:
    Andrew and trshaner, thanks for the replies.  Andrew, your answers definitely leave the impression that its a challenge to have good quality pics from big box photo labs.  I guess this is a chance we choose to take.
    I've always gotten very good results from my Costco Photo Center in Ocean, NJ. Post #28 at the link I provided shows tests results I got using sRGB with and without soft proof corrections:
    http://forums.adobe.com/message/4865815#4865815
    smilingcdn@yahoo wrote:
    I will need to read more the potential downside by not having the local adjustments not reflected in the global adjustment tools.  Not familiar with this yet.
    There's no downside as long as you remember that's how you are applying  the "additional" corrections to your soft proof copies. If you need to go back and make additional corrections to any of the soft proof copies you can either update the Graduated filter settings or apply a 2nd Graduated filter with those changes.
    Just be aware that LR applies the Local Adjustment BEFORE the Global Adjustments. The potential danger is that if you apply controls like +Exposure to an image area that is near 100% highlights you will push the image into clipping. The Global controls will NOT be able to recover the clipped data! The same holds true for an image with deep shadow areas. If you use -Exposure your shadows can become clipped. This applies to use of ANY Local adjustments for ANY purpose, not just soft proof adjustments, so you need to be aware of it at all times.
    Since you'll only be making minor color corrections and very moderate tonal corrections to the soft proof images there's very little likelyhood you'll see this issue. For all other usage apply Local settings that REDUCE HIGHLIGHTS and/or RAISE SHADOWS and you won't have a problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Soft Proofing Books?

    Is there any way of soft proofing books, as in CS2 View/Proof colors? And is there a choice of papers?

    At the very bottom of the view menu you can select an ICC printer profile for soft proofing. You can then the function and will use the selected profile. I can't think of anyway to select paper a type unless a specific profile is provided for that printer/paper combination.
    Sam

  • Can you Soft-Proof in PSE 6 before printing?

    Is there a way to soft-proof in PSE? I have createded custom ICC profiles for my monitor and printer/ink/paper combinations (using SpyderPrint) and would like to soft-proof the image on my monitor before printing. I know you can do this in Photoshop CS3, and it can save lots of of ink and paper, as compared to proofing from prints. Thanks.

    Thanks, Richard. I should mention that there's at least one add-on program that claims to add soft proofing to PSE, but in my opinion it's not useful, since to really see what something looks like on paper you need to have access to CMYK and nothing can make PSE able to do that. I've tried the add-on and it brings up the softproof dialog box, but the changes you make there mostly have no effect on what you see onscreen, unfortunately, due to the limitations in the PSE code base.
    Don't forget that as PSE owner you can usually upgrade to full PS for $299. Adobe sends email about this periodically, but in my experience, if you call adobe sales you can usually talk someone into letting you have it even when it's not officially offered, although you might have to call a couple of times till you get lucky.

  • 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.

  • Can You Soft Proof Your Faxes?  Cover Sheet?

    I've come across instructions on FAXing that say I should be able to Soft Proof or Preview my FAXes before sending them, even seeing my cover page. I think the info was good for Panther. I am running 10.4.11 and I can't seem to do that -- but then, my Completed FAXes button is greyed-out, so I don't know if it is me and my machine that is the problem, or if this is functionality that was lost along the way. Can other Tigers Preview/Soft Proof FAXes?

    Looks like I can get a Preview of the file I am faxing, but I don't see a preview of my cover sheet.
    Here is a way to see some information about your completed fax jobs:
    http://127.0.0.1:631/printers/Internal_Modem
    Tiger's faxing support does seem to be somewhat sketchy to say the least!
    Regards,
    Steve M.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • [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 in Aperture vs Others

    I posted this in another thread, but didn't get a reply so I thought I'd try another Subject title. Sorry.
    Someone was having a problem with Aperture to Photoshop using CYMK. I'm having the same problem Adobe RGB images. I use Gretag/Macbeth to calibrate my monitor. When I proof in Aperture, the result is VERY desaturated compared with the soft proofs in Photoshop (direct from Aperture), C1, and Canon DPP. The others all soft proof identically. I haven't had a chance to print anything yet from Aperture, but I know my onscreen versions are very accurate compared to my printed output when using the other programs. If I leave Aperture proofing off and proofing off in the other programs, then the screen versions are pretty close. But I really would like to use proofing. Anybody else found this problem and worked it out? Thanks.

    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

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