Printing thru software RIP

[jwlimages]

Has anyone been able to get LR to print through a RIP? I have been trying, so far without success.

In theory, this should be possible - you can print RGB files to the RIP (ColorBurst) from say, Photoshop, by telling the RIP what working RGB space to assume & setting Photoshop to "let printer manage color".

But when I print the same way from LR to ColorBurst, no matter what RGB space I set as source (in CB), the output is far afield from what LR displays on my calibrated monitor. (printing same files thru the Epson RGB driver, LR output matches the display amazingly well)

I have tried setting the RIP to expect files in various RGB source spaces - e.g., ProPhoto, and a "MelissaRGB" I created - the output remains the same, oversaturated color, shifted toward green/yellow overall.


First question: what is LR sending in the print stream? Is the file data in some color space?

I assumed it is, and that it would be LR's internal color space of "MelissaRGB" - am I wrong here?

And is my memory wrong of "MelissaRGB" being ProPhoto primaries with a TRC/"gamma" close to 2.2, like sRGB?


Yes, I can just accept the limitation of printing only through the Epson RGB driver. But ColorBurst does a great job driving my SP4000, and it would be nice to make use of its increased capabilities with LR as well as my other apps.

Any advice/shared experience is appreciated.

Thanks,

John Lund
JWL Images
Emeryville, CA

[digitaldog]

Melissa RGB is only used internally for Histogram and RGB values. Its never handed off to print.

LR hands of ProPhoto RGB (unless you're printing draft mode, then it could be sRGB, depending on what you've set for Preview Quality in Catalog preferences).

You don't say what OS or version you're printing from. Printer Manages Color isn't working all that well depending on the application, OS and print driver. Big, big mess.

Printer Manages Color and Application Manages Color are not the same in LR as PS either.

[jwlimages]

Hi Andrew,

So LR does send data in ProPhoto (I'm not printing draft mode), OK, thanks.

I'm on Mac OSX 10.4.11.

So what is LR sending when I select "Printer Manages Color"?

Is it different from sending RGB data in ProPhoto RGB?

It must be, from the result I'm getting, at least it doesn't resemble what I get when I render out to a ProPhoto PSD, then print that from Photoshop to the RIP.

Thanks,

John
JWL Images
Emeryville, CA

LR hands of ProPhoto RGB (unless you're printing draft mode, then it could be sRGB, depending on what you've set for Preview Quality in Catalog preferences).

You don't say what OS or version you're printing from. Printer Manages Color isn't working all that well depending on the application, OS and print driver. Big, big mess.

Printer Manages Color and Application Manages Color are not the same in LR as PS either.
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[digitaldog]

So what is LR sending when I select "Printer Manages Color"?
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Its sending ProPhoto RGB but then what's the OS doing with the data? What's the driver doing? That's the problem with PMC. It should send ProPhoto in this case with a tag that the printer now uses for conversion but that's not always the case.

[jwlimages]

Its sending ProPhoto RGB but then what's the OS doing with the data?
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--  ah yes, that brings back memories of the one-time Product Manager for Colorsync, John ?forgot-his-last-name?, proudly announcing how OSX will be "color managed, all the time - you can't turn it off!"
So now we have wonderful "features" like arbitrary tagging with profiles like "CameraRGB" or "Generic RGB Profile"…

What's the driver doing? That's the problem with PMC. It should send ProPhoto in this case with a tag that the printer now uses for conversion but that's not always the case.
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--  one nice thing about this RIP is that you can tell it exactly what color space to assume for incoming jobs, whether they're tagged or not - so no uncertainty there.

Other Adobe apps don't exhibit this problem - e.g., printing from Illustrator works as expected.

I just can't figure out what LR is doing when you print from it. (of course the normally excellent Colorburst tech support people seem to have no idea what to make of this)

John

[digitaldog]

--  one nice thing about this RIP is that you can tell it exactly what color space to assume for incoming jobs, whether they're tagged or not - so no uncertainty there.

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Have you tried either Generic RGB or sRGB?

[jwlimages]

Have you tried either Generic RGB or sRGB?
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--  Hmmm...

Nope, not yet - but will check it out.

John

[jwlimages]

(digitaldog @ Dec 20 2007, 03:42 PM)
Have you tried either Generic RGB or sRGB?

--  OK, did some testing. Tried the following (among others):
Source = sRGB
Source = Generic RGB
Source = current display profile

And the winner is…

Exporting a ProPhoto PSD, printing from Photoshop to RIP with custom CMYK profile.

:-(

A close second place goes to LR printing thru the Epson RGB driver with custom RGB profile.


The three choices at top result in identical prints, too contrasty & more limited color range, compared to the prints generated by Photoshop or LR > Epson driver. LR sends a .ps file to this Postscript RIP - if it's really a Postscript print file, then Postscript 'color manglement' is involved, so who knows what is sent as CSA ('source') and what CRD ('destination') is invoked.

From this I infer that LR is designed to print only to RGB devices at this point (and it does a pretty good job at that). But to get the best prints from my printer (which means using the RIP), I have to export & print from Photoshop.

It would be nice to see this situation change (along with soft-proofing capability & a few dozen other things  ;-) by version 2.

Happy Holidays,

John

[Nat Coalson]

It sounds like you may be considering extra variables that don't need to be added into the workflow.

The file is RGB and has an embedded profile. Period. The RIP has options for handling embedded profiles and will do the conversion to the CMYK+ space of the printer. And the RIP has color management capabilities (linearization etc.) beyond what the driver can do with a given printer profile.

If you want the same results from the RIP as when printing from Photoshop or Lightroom, you need to configure the RIP settings accordingly. Otherwise it's likely that the embedded profiles and the internal CMS will produce unpredictable results when run through the RIP.

In general, RIPs work best using their own proprietary linearization and environment settings, but they should be made aware of embedded profiles in the files themselves.

Download the Colorburst environments for the printer/paper combination you are using. If it is not available, you will need to make your own.

In the end, printing through a RIP should give you more control over output - not less. But from Lightroom, you may be better off just exporting TIFFs and bringing them into the RIP, rather than trying to actually print to the RIP.

[jwlimages]

The file is RGB and has an embedded profile. Period.
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Yes, that's true of a file *exported* from LR, and I assume also true when printing to an RGB printer. The question is, what profile (if any) is embedded in the .ps file sent when printing to a Postscript device. (I understand that an ICC profile is not really embedded, instead it's a Color Space Array, but which ICC profile is the CSA based upon?)

If you want the same results from the RIP as when printing from Photoshop or Lightroom, you need to configure the RIP settings accordingly. Otherwise it's likely that the embedded profiles and the internal CMS will produce unpredictable results when run through the RIP.
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Yes. I tried to explain that the RIP is configured correctly - results from Photoshop are excellent, the surprise is that LR is apparently behaving differently. BTW, this RIP does not honor profiles embedded in the print stream - when you print to it as a printer, you set up the RIP to assume a specific source profile - but it *does* use embedded profiles in the expected way when you print by dropping a tiff file into a hot folder.

In the end, printing through a RIP should give you more control over output - not less. But from Lightroom, you may be better off just exporting TIFFs and bringing them into the RIP, rather than trying to actually print to the RIP.
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Agreed. But I still hope this will change eventually.

Thanks for your input.

Regards,

John

[yannb]

Hello,

I have had the same issues too printing from Lightroom 1.3.1 to an EFI Colorproof XF rip, both running on Mac OS X 10.4.11: oversaturated colours, even though the rip is set up to honour embedded profiles etc. The only thing that works so far is choosing 'Save as PDF' in the Print dialog window, right into the rip hotfolder. This PDF has images with embedded ProPhoto profile. Without this step, apparently the RGB images are tagged as CalibratedRGB...

Hope this helps you out a bit.

Regards,
and have a nice new years eve!

Yann Bouckaert
Belgium

[jwlimages]

Hello Yann,

Thank you for your input.

Without this step, apparently the RGB images are tagged as CalibratedRGB...
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--  aah, a clue!
Thank you again.

And Happy New Year to you as well.

Regards,

John