Soft proofing using "Simulate paper color"

Does anyone really understand exactly how this function is supposed to work? With the extreme move that occurs when Simulate" is clicked on, It seems virtually impossible to make corrections to the file that resemble the original look of the file. The idea is that the "Simulate" option shows you the image as the printer sees the image before he makes his corrections on press (by adding ink to the press run) and if we can compensate with a correction, that it will save the printer loads of time and save me tons of paper. by profiling the epson to a proofing paper and printing with that profile I get a exact rendition of my image. Why do you need "simulate paper color"?

Most computer monitors are much brighter than any printed sheet. The Simulate Paper is doing an Absolute Colorimetric rendering through the paper profile to the screen, attempting to show you the real color of the paper, not the bright white of you monitor. If you monitor is extremely well calibrated and you have good custom profiles of your output paper - and controlled viewing conditions, all of this can work pretty darned well, but only if all those little ducks are actually in the same row. The biggest problem is that most paper profiles are not accurate enough to simulate the paper white, and the least bit of error is clearly seen with the naked eye.
Typically when you have a paper that is not super white, the color and tone of the paper will have a gradual effect on colors from paper white into the midtones, dirtying up the lightest colors. Newsprint would be a common offender. If you're printing on #1 sheets the effect is very small if you notice it at all. Experience will tell you when you need to compensate. Trusting the Absolute Colorimetric rendering on Epson proofs will probably cause you more problems that you started with unless you've manually edited the Absolute Colorimetric rendering white point of the output profile, a trial and error process where the eyes are much more accurate than any spectrophotometer.
Personally I almost never use it for offset unless it's newsprint or some other really crappy paper. I find it somewhat useful for inkjet canvas and fine art papers, but that's about it.

Similar Messages

What is the corresponding DOM property to control the "Simulate Paper Color" option on Print dialog

I want to simulate the following manual steps in script:
Manual steps:
1. File->Print->Color Management
2. Click "Proof" radio button
3. Uncheck "Simulate Paper Color"
Script:
2. app.documents[0].printPreferences.sourceSpace = SourceSpaces.PROOF_SPACE;
3. ??? here I can't find the corresponding property or method to uncheck "Simulate Paper Color"

I think I have figure out the corresponding property, it is PrinterPreset.intent
Assigning PrinterPreset.intent to RenderingIntent.absoluteColorimetric equals to checking "Simulate Paper Color", assigning it to RenderingIntent.relativeColorimetric equals to unchecking the box.

Costco and soft proofing show dull washed out image

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

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

Soft Proofing CS3 and OS X 10.5.2

Issue: Printing with calibrated Artisan Monitor, Epson 4000, Epson Driver version 3.09 results in light magenta proof image but apparently correct image when printed. Hardware platform: Mac pro dual 2.8GH Xeon, 16G memory, 15k sas boot and identical scratch drive.
Printing with application controlled settings (CS3), setting printer to paper profile (Premium Luster), soft proofing on monitor, disabling color management in print dialogue, preview image looks light with magenta cast (as it always did in windows CS3 with Epson preview) but print usually matches soft proof. When I set printer profile (in the CS3 print window)to Adobe RGB or generic RGB, the preview image looks like soft proof, but print very dark. I am totally new to Mac OS, long time XP user, so don't understand much about colorsync, etc.
Is this a photoshop bug, problem in OS X 10.52 or something else?
I also downloaded Colorburst Rip demo and it prints fine, but I much prefer to use native printer driver to save money as planning to upgrade printer.

All the monitor is doing in Photoshop is faithfully PROOFING the Source File (through a Source Profile-to-MonitorRGB Conversion).
"Soft Proof" here usually means Photoshop> View> Proof SetUp> Custom: specific target ICC Profile
Epson Print Preview is not color managed (use it for layout only).
WHY on earth "set printer profile (in the CS3 print window)to Adobe RGB or generic RGB"?
Printer Profile should be set to Specific Printer/Paper/Ink ICC profile...
http://www.gballard.net/psd/printing_Epson_Photoshop_cs3.html
All the printer is doing is PROOFING the Source File (through a Source Profile-to-Printer Profile Conversion).
If your printed PROOF is off, it is either a bad printer profile or bad settings (assuming your monitor is good and you are basing your judgment on the monitor)...

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.

Cant check the box Simulate paper & ink when soft proofing is on

Need help please,
I cant check the box for Simulate paper & ink, when soft proofing is on. Im using Lightroom 4.1, with a Windows 7 PC
Thanks
Mike

It'll only be available for specific profiles. Which profile do you have selected?

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 issue in CS4 using iMac and Epson 3880?

I have had great success printing to an Epson r1900 never using soft proofing. Purchased a new 3880 and having colour problems. A suggestion was made to use soft proofing. Monitor is calibrated using iOne-looks very good to the eye. Working space from camera to PS is Adobe RGB. I am setting my custom output device to ICC profile for paper (ilford and hanhmule) Is this correct/ 9or should I be setting to Epson Apple RGB? On screen, the proof color looks WAY off the monitor non-proof version, which is spot on, but when I print the image it doesn't look at all like the "soft proof" it looks more like the monitor version. I have read everything I can find-printing on the 3880 is a crap-shoot. Sometimes it matches the screen, sometimes it doesn't and when it doesn't it also isn't matching the soft proof.
Suggestions?
Thanks!
NJ

Victoria....
Seems I was to much an optimist...heh
As I mentioned I did get LR4b on the Imac to find the icc profiles of my epson 2880 but while I was trying to figure out why it would not read my epson 3880 icc profiles and others LR4b suddely corrupted the pref filels once again and I was at ground zero... Just like I was when I first posted on the forum.
I again threw out the LR4b pref files and it brought back the epson 2280 profiles only??
So why can't it find my epson 3880 icc profiles or others and only the 2880's... and why do the pref files corrupt. I was actually soft proofing when the corruption took place and the icc profiles disappeared.
I'm running the exact same OS on my Macbook Pro and none of these issues have surfaced.
Oh... I did notice that the fact I require authenication to trash LR4b on the Imac did excist on the Macbook Pro as well ... so I'm guessing this normal or I have two wierd computers.
Got to love computers..
Thanks
George

Is Lightroom 2.2 color managed? How to soft proof?

I was just told that LR 2.2 is not color managed and softproofing is not possible... is this true?
I also have PS CS4... What is the best way to use LR 2.2 for you image editing in a color managed workflow if you also want to Soft proof before printing when you also have PS CS4?

It is correct that LR does not have soft proofing. But you don't have to print from PS to use soft proofing.
For color images, when I've finished with Develop in LR, I then edit in PS and do the soft proofing there. I have recorded some actions (two per paper type - one for each rendering intent - relative and perceptual) which I then apply as appropriate. The actions apply two adjustment layers - a curve and a hue/sat (to do a saturation bump - not necessary for all papers). I then tweak if necessary, flatten the layers and save the result.
I then print the PS edited file in LR. In my case I also rename the file to indicate the paper and rendering intent, plus I keyword it accordingly.
It's a pain but works very well. By printing in LR you can take advantage of the built-in output sharpening, and it's generally more convenient to set up - at least for me.
I have an Epson 2880 - when printing Black and White I use Eric Chan's profiles for the 3800 ABW mode - they seem to work fine for the 2880 - at least for me - I get results that match what I see on screen. For B&W I do not need to use PS at all - I just print directly from LR - no need to soft proof.
Selby

Soft Proof view mode problem for MOAB Slickrock Metallic Pearl Paper

I use the Soft Proof mode in Lightroom (LR) for editing printed output, and use either custom color profiles that I make (Spyder Print) or profiles supplied by the paper manufacturer. This feature works very well, much like the Custom View mode in Photoshop (PS). MOAB/Legion makes a neat paper called Slickrock Mettalic Pearl, that mimics the old Cibachrome prints, and the supply a color profile that works well in PS. However, when I toggle on the Soft Proof mode using this profile in LR, the image goes completely white, except for deep blacks which show up as bright green. When I actually make the print from LR, the print comes out okay, but there's no way to know if it's true to the proof view, since the proof view is unusable.
Viewing, editing and printing the same image in Photoshop (PS) 5.1 works fine. Editing and printing when view mode (Proof Setup > Custom) is to the same profile produces a print that's true to the proof view. So it seems that the problem is between LR and the .icc file. Here's the link to the profile file: Go to MOAB Slickrock Metallic Pearl Epson R2400 EPL.icc.
http://moabpaper.com/icc-profiles-downloads/epson/epson-stylus-photo-r2400/
iMac; OSX 10.7.5
LR 4.2
Photoshop CS5 12.1
Printer: Epson Stylus Photo R2400 (Photo Black ink)

Looks like a compatibiitly issue with Adobe LR soft proof:
http://moabpaper.com/display/Search?moduleId=3387293&searchQuery=Lightroom+soft+proof
...and PS soft proof:
http://moabpaper.com/moab-support-forum/post/2109935#post2144949

No paper appears for Soft Proofing in Snow Leopard and R1900 Epson printer...?

No papers appear for Soft Proofing a photo when using Epson R1900 printer and in Snow Leopard.
Print driver 6.62 is installed. Soft Profing papers are listed when an image is open in Preview but
can't print from Preview. None appear when a photo is open in Photoshop. Paper profiles
are listed in Color Sync Folder in Library but they don't appear for Soft Proofing when in PS.
How can I get profiles for Soft Proofing? They did appear when my printer was in Tiger & a Power Mac...?

I can't really tell which drivers you are using right now. It sounds like the best course of action for you is to uninstall all of the Epson printer drivers and reinstall them one at a time. You will need to go into the Library/Caches folder and delete the Epson folder. Also go into the Library/Printers folder and delete the Epson folder. In the PPDs folder, delete the .gz files for your printers, too. If you are using the Gutenprint driver, you will need to uninstall that first. You can download the uninstaller at the following URL:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-print/files/Uninstaller%20-%20Mac%20OS%20X% 20ONLY/1.2.6/gutenprint-uninstaller-1.2.6.dmg/download
Click on the file it downloads and uninstall Gutenprint.
Once all the drivers have been uninstalled, install the latest drivers for each of your printers one at a time and make sure each works before installing to the next one.
Hope this helps, Syd

Changing color profile in Lightroom 5 Soft Proofing from ProPhotoRGB to sRGB is not showing any changes, changes in Photoshop CC are dramatic

I am working with the color profile ProPhoto RGB in both Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC. In preparing for my first Blurb book I have tried to generate pictures in sRGB in Lightroom, using the Soft Proofing feature, but there are no changes at all. Then I transfer the same pictures into Photoshop, change the color profiles and the results are dramatically different.
What can I do to achieve the same results in Lightroom

With an average monitor what you see on-screen is already soft proofed to sRGB (or something very close to it), because that's all the monitor is capable of displaying anyway. So soft proofing to sRGB won't tell you anything. You won't see any difference.
In Photoshop it sounds as if you assign profiles. That's not the way to do it. If you convert correctly you won't see any difference. Same principle as above: there may be clipping in the process, but what you see on screen is already clipped, so no visual on-screen difference.
With a wide gamut monitor soft proofing becomes slightly more useful. But still you won't see any changes occurring outside Adobe RGB. You'll get a better idea by keeping an eye on the histogram. Ideally, all three channels should taper gently off towards the endpoints. If any one or two channels are backed solidly up against the endpoint, on either side, that's gamut clipping.
If Blurb gave you a real profile, one that reflected their actual printing process, you could soft proof to that. But apparently they don't.

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 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.

How to use ICC profiles and soft proofing profiles?

Hi,
I got an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 and Epson Hot Press paper which, upon investigation, received great profeesional reviews and, having never printed digitally before, I don't know how to use profiles for soft proofing or printing.
I don't know where to go in Aperture or what to do. My driver is up to date and I downloaded the paper profile - not sure where it ended up. What's next?
So far as I know, soft proofing is about calibrating the monitor to the paper - am I correct?
Thanks guys,
Raphael

Raphael,
A good reply is going to require a full-size keyboard, which I don't have access to just now. Here are some starter pages:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.shtml (a bit grumpy and out-dated)
Fwiw, I print to Epson Hot Press using a 3880. Imho, it's a _great_ printer, and that combination of printer and paper produced state-of-the-art results. (Not suitable in all cases, but if that is a look you like, the only thing that I've seen that surpasses it is the Epson 9900, and without looking at prints side by side you can not tell them apart.)
Your profile ended up wherever you have told your browser to save downloaded files. The Epson site should provide instructions on where to move the file. Once it is in the right Finder folder, when you next Aperture it should show in your list of profiles.
Keep in mind, though, that soft-proofing is useless without a well (read: hardware-calibrated) calibrated display.
HTH,
--Kirby.
(Sent from my magic glass.)

Soft proofing using "Simulate paper color"

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