Everything. How's that for starters? : ) And I know I'm not alone.
For one..the white border/background becomes very distracting to my eyes.
Which tools to use..exposure-contrast, saturation, curves..Nothing seems to get me to what i was enjoying about the image in the develop module..It becomes a game of going backwards in some sense..a matching game...which is never good.
And, I don't understand why this is the only way to do it?..Example..How to get rid of the white background simulating the paper? why is this necessary?..Seems silly to have white light being shot at you while trying to evaluate an image on a screen made of light Couldn't they give you the option of using the profile in soft proof with out the white in your eyes? Maybe I'm missing something?
..it's not the same as looking at a print on paper with a white border around it...reflected light vs light beams directed at eyes.
Also a mystery as to why, when working out of photoshop using an artisan, i never had these issues previously.
thanks, Mark. I appreciate your attention.
EDIT: I just right clicked on the white background in Soft Proof mode and noticed that you can, in fact, change the color..
Do folks actually work with the white background usually? Or, do they change to darker color?
OK, let's deal with this from the basics.
The purpose of the softproof is to simulate on your display the appearance of the print that will emerge from your printer.
For this to work satisfactorily, you should simulate paper white and ink.
The shade of the image surround does not need to be pure white - this can be hard on the eyes, but no darker than light gray. The purpose of this is simply that you view prints with light all over the place, so if you make the surround dark you will miss replicating this context, and the image on the display will appear to have more contrast than it will show out of the printer.
Softproof is working your printer/paper profile in reverse to produce the simulation you need. If the printer is managing colour, it is irrelevant because you aren't using a profile of your choosing. As long as you are working in RGB mode with Photoshop or Lightroom managing colour, you should adjust your photo under softproof for your printing/paper condition whether you are printing colour or B&W. You can make different editing versions or do it on layers if you want to preserve a non-softproofed version.
There is nothing more elusive to softproofing than these few principles. By using it, I keep my waste ratio well below 5% and my prints reliably look the way I want them to.
Finally, you need to calibrate your monitor by running a printer test image (such as the one on the Outback Photo website) through the printer using your usual paper (no adjustments to anything except choice of the right profile) and then making sure the brightness and contrast of your monitor are set so that what you see on the display looks like what came out of the printer under typical print viewing conditions; then profile the monitor with this calibration.
This combination of procedures should give you reliable, successful outcomes.