Printing From Capture One?

[LeonD]

I'm in the process of evaluating Capture One, comparing it to Lightroom.

I prefer the develop process and working with Raw files in C1 compared to LR.  I prefer LR's asset management over C1 but this might just be a familiarity thing.

With printing however, Lightroom seems to be miles ahead of C1.  Just with the soft proofing alone.  Am I missing something?  For those using C1, are you printing from C1 also?

[N80]

This tutorial goes through the process of making a fine art B&W print from Capture One 9:

http://blog.phaseone.com/print-fine-art-images-directly-from-capture-one-pro-9/

I am just starting to experiment with printing from CO. But even if LR is better at it I still wouldn't use it for anything else. Photoshop probably has the best print capabilities and you can always export form CO into PS and print from there.

Just curious, what do you find to be superior in LR's soft proofing? (Not a challenge, I just don't know).

[Jimmy D Uptain]

I do not print from C1 or LR. I'll send it to PS,tweak it, then on to Mirage Print.

C1 printing isn't the best as far as ease of use, and although LR is far easier and superior as a printing tool, I found Mirage was even better and can work from

C1, LR, PS or as a standalone, which is really great when printing crafty stuff for the wife/grandkids.

[LeonD]

Thanks for the replies guys.

N80, I find the two print, before/after view, when soft proofing in LR makes the process fairly intuitive.  With C1, it seems like you go thru all the develop steps.  Then when you're ready to print, all you do is change the profile.  I know for a fact, different profiles/papers have a huge impact on the final output.  At the least, a touch of clarity/contrast/vibrance one way or the other, is needed to get an optimized print.  From what I've read, seems like a lot of folks do their work in C1 then go somewhere else to print.  I'm looking to do as much "one stop shopping" as possible.

Jimmy,  I've never heard of Mirage Print.  Thx for the heads up.

[N80]

I'm still learning about soft proofing in CO. It seems like the only way to compare is to go to the view menu, select your ICC profile and see how it looks and then switch it back to Adobe RGB or whatever you have your monitor profile set to.

So yes, being able to switch back and forth is a nice touch in LR. However, it occurs to me that once you have done basic adjustments etc, why not just create a 'variant' (CO uses a different term for 'copy') of the original, switch to your soft proof ICC profile and finish editing the variant that is intended for print output. I don't really see a downside to this and being able to compare how your image looks on the computer vs the soft proof really isn't relevant to the final print output. It needs to look the way you want it to look on the print regardless of how it looks on your monitor. (Again, I'm just now delving into all of this so I could be way off base.)