Soft Proofing Issue

[fennario]

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read & reply this posting.

I have a color calibrated monitor and have been encountering difficulties obtaining a good match between screen and prints from online printshops.  When using the  soft-proof & gamut warning tools (using the printshop's ICC profiles) there is a marked decrease in saturation, vibrance, etc; and depending on the image, lots of gamut warning.  

However, if I convert the image to the printshop's ICC profile there is not the same onscreen quality loss (using relative colormetric + black point comp).  Further, if I convert back to aRGB and soft proof again, there is no image degragation and/or clipping.

I understand why there is no clipping upon re-softproofing, however, I do not understand why the onscreen representation of a softproof is so different from a convert to profile.  

As such, I was wondering what the best workflow would be when prepping files for an online printshop...
1. softproof and adjust to get the final output (difficult and time consuming); or

2. convert to prinshop ICC profile and upload (Pictopia), or convert to printshop ICC and reconvert back to sRGB before upload (mPix).

[mballent]

FWIW I print at home, but I do all my editing with softproof for the paper/printer combination.  So that I do not end up re-editing the images I want.  I do not think that you need to keep switching back and forth with all the.  If you editing an image for the web why would you want to edit the thing with aRGB.  I am of the opinion that you should edit for final output... If your final output can only handle sRGB then edit in sRGB.  Just my .02

[booksmartstudio]

The best way is to get to know your printer.  Any other way is never perfect, it is comparing apples to oranges, or reflected light to transmitted light.  You could try to send them a color and grayscale target to get a better idea, and edit your monitor profile.  But that is a lot of work for not promised results.

Make sure your monitor is a good one and representing colors effectively.  You can open this file to see if you monitor and profile are working properly.  Do not apply a color space to the image, open in Photoshop and do not color manage when it asks you.

Link to image:

http://www.booksmartstudio.com/downloads/GrangerRainbow.tif

[fennario]

FWIW I print at home, but I do all my editing with softproof for the paper/printer combination.  So that I do not end up re-editing the images I want.  I do not think that you need to keep switching back and forth with all the.  If you editing an image for the web why would you want to edit the thing with aRGB.  I am of the opinion that you should edit for final output... If your final output can only handle sRGB then edit in sRGB.  Just my .02
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Not looking to profile for web publishing but to obtain prints from an online printshop (pictopia, mpix, shutterfly, kodak, etc.).  I have the Pictopia and mPix ICC profiles for their paper/printer combos (Pictopia accepts files tagged with their ICC, while mPix requires sRGB).

My workflow starts out in a wide gamut space such as proRGB in order to allow the most editing headroom and finishes with a conversion to a or sRGB, depending on the printer's requirements (Pictopia accepts aRGB if you don't want to use their ICC profile).  

On occasion the prints I recieved did not comport with expectations.  As such, I started softproofing with the printer's ICC profiles to see what gamut issues I was running into.

Just can't understand why there is such a dramatic onscreen difference between softproofing with a printer's ICC profile vs. actually converting to that exact same profile.

[Schewe]

You don't have the Preserve RGB Numbers option selected, do you?

If either of the deice profiles you have are "close" to sRGB, you really shouldn't see a ton of difference unless you also check the Display Options (On-Screen) and have both the Simulate Paper Color and Simulate Black Ink selected. But in no event would you want the Preserve RGB Numbers selected.

[fennario]

You don't have the Preserve RGB Numbers option selected, do you?

If either of the deice profiles you have are "close" to sRGB, you really shouldn't see a ton of difference unless you also check the Display Options (On-Screen) and have both the Simulate Paper Color and Simulate Black Ink selected. But in no event would you want the Preserve RGB Numbers selected.
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Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply so far... truly appreciate it.

Had paper white/black ink simulation activated.

[evonzz]

Had paper white/black ink simulation activated.
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I have been doing all my printing with softproof with black ink and paper simulation turned on and then doing final adjustments for print.  The prints are coming out pretty darn close to monitor on my 3800.  It seems to work for me, so i;ll stick with it for now.

I was wondering, what does the "Preserve RGB" option actally do? looks horrible with that ticked so can't imagine why it would ever be used?

[francois]

…I was wondering, what does the "Preserve RGB" option actally do?…

It's supposed to show you how your photo would look if you send it without conversion to your printer.

[walter.sk]

I have been doing all my printing with softproof with black ink and paper simulation turned on and then doing final adjustments for print. 
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Same here.  I print on a Z3100, usually using Perceptual intent with BPC turned on.
I softproof using either Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric, depending on which I will send to the printer, and I recently started using black ink and paper simulation.  I make the (usually) small corrections on a curves adjustment layer and sometimes a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and print from Qimage which has no problem reading the layered file.

I'm tickled silly with the results.  For me, the era of unpleasant surprises has thankfully gone.