Softproofing shows blacks as a milky grey

Question

I have seen a problem like this before, and raised a question on the forum, but realised what was wrong (the problem happened on a full colour image, and once I set the Process to 2012 it went away). However it has cropped up again, and this time the image was imported directly into LR4 so Process was 2012 by default.
I have an image which is a glass with liquid in against a black background. I have made a few tweaks in LR and am ready to send it off for printing. I just though I would take a look in Soft Proofing to see how the coloured liquid looked. When I click soft proofing and choose the correct profile supplied by my printing company (which is a 'glossy' profile), the black takes on a milky grey appearance, but according to LR is not out of Gamut.
If I choose the matt profile from my printing company, the same effect is there, but less so.
I rather think that this is quirk of softproofing black, what with black not actually being a colour and all that. Since there are no gamut warnings, and I have never had a problem with printed images on a black background, then I think I should ignore this. It does give a rather mis-leading impression though.
Has anybody else seen this, or can offer a better explanation as to what is happening?
Cheers

Answer 1

Nerdio wrote:
I understand what you are saying about LR mimicking the 'paper look' I didn't think of this, and have now tried unchecking the 'Simulate Paper and Ink look' and the blacks come back to what I expect. I hadn't thought of this.
I think then I should really use Softproofing to check Gamut, and not worry about the 'Paper and Ink look', then it will at least look a little more reasonable on the screen. I shall get the image printed and see where I go from there.
Actually the opposite. The gamut warnings are only mildly useful. You’ll likely have colors in the LR color space that fall out of gamut, that is just a fact of life. Depending on the rendering intent you select, OOG colors will be mapped in two differing fashions, those are your only options. Pick the intent you visually prefer ( benefit of soft proofing #1).
But the Simulate check boxes are super important because black as defined as say 0% in LR is displayed on your monitor as a black hole. The system will attempt to emit as little light as possible to that set of pixels. That isn’t how Matt paper (any paper) behaves! The contrast ratio of your display is huge (800:1, 1000:1 or more) compared to that Matt print (150:1, maybe 200:1). So there is a huge visual discount. The soft proof and simulate shows you what the print should look like as best as the two differing technologies allow. Yes, the blacks look muddy. Reality kind of sucks <g>. With good profiles (that means profiles who’s two tables, one for the output, one for the soft proof), proper display calibration, using the simulate check box should produce a much better screen to print match. That’s the ultimate goal for color management.