Rendering Intent

[Philip Weber]

I am trying to get a better understanding of Relative and Perceptual rendering intents. In C2P, I seem to remember Jeff saying he used Relative most of the time and in my limited experience, so have I. Generally, it just looks better.

I more or less get the basic idea of how they each deal with the color gamut but what I'd like to know is - Are there specific types of prints that one would think of using one or the other first?

In other words, are there certain tonal, color, subject, HDR, etc. considerations that would make one try Perceptual first? Or is it always just a "try one, then the other for each print and eyeball it?" Are the differences primarily seen in one thing over another - sharpness, hue/saturation, contrast, etc.?

I use LR 1.3 and CS3, roundtripping back into LR for printing, generally along the lines that Jeff and Michael suggest in C2P. Additionally, does paper matter? I generally use Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art, application managing mode with the corresponding paper profile on my B9180.

Thanks in advance for any insights you may be able to offer!
Phil

[Josh-H]

I am trying to get a better understanding of Relative and Perceptual rendering intents. In C2P, I seem to remember Jeff saying he used Relative most of the time and in my limited experience, so have I. Generally, it just looks better.

I more or less get the basic idea of how they each deal with the color gamut but what I'd like to know is - Are there specific types of prints that one would think of using one or the other first?

In other words, are there certain tonal, color, subject, HDR, etc. considerations that would make one try Perceptual first? Or is it always just a "try one, then the other for each print and eyeball it?" Are the differences primarily seen in one thing over another - sharpness, hue/saturation, contrast, etc.?

I use LR 1.3 and CS3, roundtripping back into LR for printing, generally along the lines that Jeff and Michael suggest in C2P. Additionally, does paper matter? I generally use Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art, application managing mode with the corresponding paper profile on my B9180.

Thanks in advance for any insights you may be able to offer!
Phil
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From memory Michael said he uses RelCol v. Peceptual about 50/50 - in other words each about the same.

I personally find that softproofing is the only way to really tell which suits a given image and I always check both to see which I prefer.

I know its arguable that you could say that if tone is more important then perceptual is usually better etc.. but really.. soft proofing it is the only way to tell.

Michael and Jeff talk fairly extensivley about this in the Camera 2 Print tutorial. If you dont have it - its reccomended highly.

[Philip Weber]

From memory Michael said he uses RelCol v. Peceptual about 50/50 - in other words each about the same.

I personally find that softproofing is the only way to really tell which suits a given image and I always check both to see which I prefer.

I know its arguable that you could say that if tone is more important then perceptual is usually better etc.. but really.. soft proofing it is the only way to tell.

Michael and Jeff talk fairly extensivley about this in the Camera 2 Print tutorial. If you dont have it - its reccomended highly.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170449\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I do have the C2P video and did reference it in my first post. I actually thought it was more like 80/20 Relative but either way, I do softproof and am hoping I'd have an idea on which one to start with first, based on the image I'm working with. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to switch back and forth on every image I work on!  

Thx,
PW

[Josh-H]

I do have the C2P video and did reference it in my first post. I actually thought it was more like 80/20 Relative but either way, I do softproof and am hoping I'd have an idea on which one to start with first, based on the image I'm working with. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to switch back and forth on every image I work on! 

Thx,
PW
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170451\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Sorry my bad.. I missed that you already had Camera to Print. CP2 skipped my eye.

Its only a mouse click to swap between RelCol and Perceptual in a softproof.

But I hear you about knowing which to use and when. I think that only comes with experience.

[digitaldog]

Its really simple, use what looks best to you.

Profiles don't know squat about images. Only devices.

Note too that every package will produce a different result with Perceptual since there's no  standard in how to map the out of gamut colors, each profiler can use whatever tricks they feel builds the best profile. To a less degree, the same is true with the other rendering intents (although in a perfect world, they should match).