Kevin & Jeff Soft Proofing

[Patricia Sheley]

~              Thank you!!!!

[Rand47]

Kevin, Jeff...

Bravo!  This kind of content is superb.  I've watched Jeff do this on the LULA tutorials, and last year in Death Valley at a workshop.  But the more we see the direct application of the principles on different kinds of images - the better our understanding of what is possible becomes.

I'd love to see a 30-45 minute version of this with Jeff doing several different image types, and just providing a "stream of consciousness" commentary on what he's adjusting and why. It could be a "Video 2" to this article!  And a great illustration of the soft proof improvement could be demonstrated by printing the image w/o any soft proof, and then one with the soft proof - then display the images side by side in a GTI booth or something similar.  I think that even in a video the difference would be apparent.

Anyway, thanks again.  Having Jeff more involved in LULA content is GREAT!

Rand (aka "Wineboy" from DV)

[pslocum]

Thanks for the informative video.  I not only learned more about soft proofing but also how to better tweak specific areas of the print. 

[DaveCurtis]

Yes, it's great to see Jeff back. I have really enjoyed the recent print videos.

Great to have a refresher on soft proofing.

[AlterEgo]

Yes, it's great to see Jeff back.

nice shirt too...

[rvamos]

Were you actually soft proofing using the Mac notebook's  (I believe it's a MacBook Pro 17 inch - meaning it's relatively old) monitor?  Shouldn't it be done on a calibrated monitor?  How well can you calibrate a MacBook Pro's monitor?

[Rand47]

Were you actually soft proofing using the Mac notebook's  (I believe it's a MacBook Pro 17 inch - meaning it's relatively old) monitor?  Shouldn't it be done on a calibrated monitor?  How well can you calibrate a MacBook Pro's monitor?

Jeff used the laptop for ease of demo purposes, I'm sure.  I've heard him say before that he doesn't do any "color critical" work on the laptop.  His commercial studio digital processing room is something to behold with several high end monitors. 

Having said that, working with a calibrated "anything" display is certainly better than "not," I suspect.  Some laptop screens calibrate quite nicely - though their color gamut is less (usually more or less sRGB) and the evenness of illumination usually suffers compared to high end monitors.

Rand

[Jeff Griffin]

If you were preparing an image for online / web viewing would you soft proof using sRGB instead of a paper profile ?

[digitaldog]

If you were preparing an image for online / web viewing would you soft proof using sRGB instead of a paper profile ?

Yes. But that doesn't mean anyone else viewing that image will see what you're seeing. Too many differing calibrations per display, no calibration at all, non color managed web browsers. Viewing images on the web and mobile devices is still the wild west in terms of color matching.

[Schewe]

Were you actually soft proofing using the Mac notebook's  (I believe it's a MacBook Pro 17 inch - meaning it's relatively old) monitor?  Shouldn't it be done on a calibrated monitor?  How well can you calibrate a MacBook Pro's monitor?

15in MacPro with Retina display circa late 2014 and yes we were screen capturing the laptop's video feed. And yes, I calibrate and profile my display :~)

[ValerieMillett]

 Love, love, loved it.

I'm even a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't delve into this earlier on (maybe I was out shooting or something) 
Since I had some time to kill last summer, I started calibrating (MacBook Pro even...) and soft proofing and then experimenting a bit with  different paper, in essence, I've only just begun...50+ or so of Lulas videos to go

 Jeff, I have to admit, I've obsessed over the gamut warnings (ok, I still do) but I'm going to lighten up a bit.  Great info on checking out the Relative vs. Perceptual and how different papers will affect how you'll soft-proof.

It's def been a game changer and even stranger, a bit fun!
 

[digitaldog]

  Jeff, I have to admit, I've obsessed over the gamut warnings (ok, I still do) but I'm going to lighten up a bit.

Don't be! It's not accurate and a huge waste of time. It predates Photoshop's color management from version 5.0 before soft proofing existed.
Watch this, then fall out of love with this silly, old feature:

The Out Of Gamut Overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom

In this 25 minute video, I'll cover everything you need to know about the Out Of Gamut (OOG) overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom. You'll see why, with a rare exception, you can ignore this very old feature and still deal with out of gamut colors using modern color management tools.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00O-GTDyL0w
High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/OOG_Video.mp4


Note: as Jeff pointed out, this could be useful but it would take a number of new features like multiple colored overlay based on how far OOG the colors are. And users not doing dumb things based on what they see.

[ValerieMillett]

Don't be! It's not accurate and a huge waste of time. It predates Photoshop's color management from version 5.0 before soft proofing existed.
Watch this, then fall out of love with this silly, old feature:

Thanks Andrew for posting that link!  Great information and I'm over it now... :-)

[ErikKaffehr]

Thanks!

Erik

Don't be! It's not accurate and a huge waste of time. It predates Photoshop's color management from version 5.0 before soft proofing existed.
Watch this, then fall out of love with this silly, old feature:

The Out Of Gamut Overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom

In this 25 minute video, I'll cover everything you need to know about the Out Of Gamut (OOG) overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom. You'll see why, with a rare exception, you can ignore this very old feature and still deal with out of gamut colors using modern color management tools.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00O-GTDyL0w
High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/OOG_Video.mp4


Note: as Jeff pointed out, this could be useful but it would take a number of new features like multiple colored overlay based on how far OOG the colors are. And users not doing dumb things based on what they see.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Patricia,

Here come more happy faces 

Jeff is always fun to watch…

Erik

~              Thank you!!!!

[HSakols]

This was a super informative video that answered a number of my questions. Thanks for putting it together!

[rdonson]

Thanks, Kevin and Jeff for a really practical, useful approach to soft proofing in Lightroom. 

I really love this back to the print movement.  It also justifies my Epson P800.   

[bjanes]

Don't be! It's not accurate and a huge waste of time. It predates Photoshop's color management from version 5.0 before soft proofing existed.
Watch this, then fall out of love with this silly, old feature:

The Out Of Gamut Overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom

In this 25 minute video, I'll cover everything you need to know about the Out Of Gamut (OOG) overlay in Photoshop and Lightroom. You'll see why, with a rare exception, you can ignore this very old feature and still deal with out of gamut colors using modern color management tools.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00O-GTDyL0w
High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/OOG_Video.mp4


Note: as Jeff pointed out, this could be useful but it would take a number of new features like multiple colored overlay based on how far OOG the colors are. And users not doing dumb things based on what they see.

Here is some New Information posted by Doug Gray on the Photoshop gamut warning as applied to LUT based profiles, such as printer profiles. Matrix based profiles use completely different algorithms. Here is what Doug found:

"I've closely approximated Photoshop's algorithm in Matlab by creating L*a*b* slices in increments of L:5 from 5 to 95. Then, the images were round tripped through the printer profile and Delta E's were generated. A close match on all slices with Photoshop occurred when the break between in gamut and out of gamut had a Delta E of 6."

A Delta E of 6 is clearly visible and represents more than slightly out of gamut. Still it would be useful to have a pseudocolor out of gamut representation such as can be generated by Colorthink or Gamut vision, as I demonstrated in a reply to Doug's post.

Regards,

Bill