Don't Trust Lightroom Print Sharpness

[E Slagle]

I recall reading some posts about loss of sharpness when printing from Lightroom in comparison to PS. Apparently, this issue has yet been addressed as I'm still encountering the same problem (I think?).

The condition is most noticeable when printing images with text. From PS3 the text prints perfectly clean; from Lightroom 2.1 the exact same document looks terrible; that is, the text is clearly soft and even a bit difficult to read.

The conditions: PP RGB, 16bit Tiff @ 360 ppi, printed at native resolution on Innova White Semi Matte, not output sharpening. Exact same print conditions and color management applied in PS as Lr. Using 10.4.11 on a 4880.

What's the deal? And is there work around for this problem or should Lightroom's rendering not be trusted at this juncture? Frustrating.

Eric

[brianrpatterson]

PS saves text as vector art and LR apparently does not - didn't realize this difference existed until you mentioned it.

Regarding sharpness, LR does things diferently there too but since I rarely make prints I'll defer to the experts on that subject. Hope this helped...

[jmwscot]

I published the original post at the end of August in both the Adobe Lightroom forum and here: Loss of Sharpness Printing Actual Size from Lightroom

Since using LR 2.1 text reproduction is much the same but photographic image sharpness is very good. If I have any documents with small text I print it from my unflattened psd files from PS. I don't know about the vector thing. I have printed text out from flattened psd files in PS and the text is excellent so the text is no longer a vector. Hope to hear from more knowledgeable users.

John

[madmanchan]

LR was designed to print photographic image data, not text.

[E Slagle]

LR was designed to print photographic image data, not text.

An obvious point, but why should this matter? What if a photograph has elements in it that very much resemble the character of text...? Should it then go through PS rather than Lr. Seems like an error in Lr to me.

But I would love a further, more technical explanation. And if nothing else, a note from Adobe "Hey, don't print text from Lightroom...that's not what it's meant for."

Eric

[Tklimek]

Eric....

Your posts are always appreciated by this forum; thank you as always.

Based on your response though I would have to ask about "Identity Plates".  These are a part of Lightroom which can very well be part of a printed image.  I personally have not used them or any text added to photographs which I already took.  Somehow I'm guessing internally that LR discerns these differences.  I know Scott Kelby (whom some people may not appreciate, but a lot of people do) often seems to use the "Identity Plate" feature when making prints and I don't believe he has ever said anything about the quality.  In a recent post however, he did state that if one had the need for "typography" than Photoshop is probably still necessary (vs. Lightroom).

Intersting stuff......

Thanks Eric!

Todd in Chicago

P.S.  Can't wait for the next release of LR (yes...I know we just got two of them, but us consumers always want MORE...LOL)....waiting for:

• True "kick ass" softproofing
• Distortion correction
• HDR support baked in

LR was designed to print photographic image data, not text.

[Pandora]

This is my first post but I have been visiting this site for years and have learned a huge amount.  It
is a fabulous resource - thanks.

However, back to this post. I have possibly experienced a similar issue.  It only became apparent when
I was comparing various colour profiles for Ilford Gold Fibre Silk from LR1.4.1 with Colorbyte's
Imageprint output.  I immediately noticed that very fine detail was rendered substantially clearer on
the Colorbyte print.  I then switched to CS2 and printed the same image.  The result was the same as
the Imageprint output.  The CS2 print resolved some fine detail missing on LR's print.

The image I was printing with CS2/Imageprint was also a 16 bit tiff @ 360 ppi as output from the LR
print module just prior to printing. Print size is A4 (letter).

Fortunately I found I could get precisely the same rendition of detail from LR as both CS2 and
Imageprint by forcing the LR Print Resolution to 360 ppi (not accepting the native ppi which was
something like 341) and turning off all output sharpening.

I know that tweaking the Print Resolution is not the recommended procedure but it works for me.  I
assumed it to be some interpolation/aliasing issue between the Epson R2400 driver (1440 is a multiple
of 360) and Lightroom's output rendering.

The image I used was an ACR of a Canon 450 Raw file - portrait.  The level of detail I saw the
differences in were, for example, on wisps of hair on middle distance figures and other very fine
detail. I have not actually photographed any images containing text but I can imagine that
photographed text might demonstrate the issue very well.

To test this idea I suggest one might try printing the same image from LR at 360 ppi rather than
native and see if it improves things. It works for me with my setup.

I hope this helps.

Peter

[jmwscot]

To test this idea I suggest one might try printing the same image from LR at 360 ppi rather than
native and see if it improves things. It works for me with my setup.

I do in fact set the resolution to 360. I am printing to an Epson 3800. Resolution on photographic detail is very good. I generally use the LR Landscape sharpen preset at it's default (40 / 0.8 / 50 / 0) with both images from a 1Ds MKII and MKIII. For 6 x 6 cm neg scans from a Nikon 8000 I use a LR setting of 5/ 0.8 / 25 / 0.

I set the output sharpen to Low in the print module. This produces good detail and sharpness of photograhic images on Epson Premium Semigloss and Lustre.

However text is not sharp compared with Photoshop output. I understand it is the way LR scales the image. My original post was regarding printing an image actual size in LR. I assumed LR simply passed the image unscaled to the printer. However something happens to the image; the photographic detail is fine but the text is soft.  

John

[Tklimek]

Hello Peter.....

Welcome to your first "public" post here.... ;-)

One thing you mentioned in your post was that you were using LR 1.41 when you discovered this; as I'm sure you know LR 2.1 printing has changed significantly; are you still seeing this in 2.1 as well?

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

This is my first post but I have been visiting this site for years and have learned a huge amount.  It
is a fabulous resource - thanks.

However, back to this post. I have possibly experienced a similar issue.  It only became apparent when
I was comparing various colour profiles for Ilford Gold Fibre Silk from LR1.4.1 with Colorbyte's
Imageprint output.  I immediately noticed that very fine detail was rendered substantially clearer on
the Colorbyte print.  I then switched to CS2 and printed the same image.  The result was the same as
the Imageprint output.  The CS2 print resolved some fine detail missing on LR's print.

The image I was printing with CS2/Imageprint was also a 16 bit tiff @ 360 ppi as output from the LR
print module just prior to printing. Print size is A4 (letter).

Fortunately I found I could get precisely the same rendition of detail from LR as both CS2 and
Imageprint by forcing the LR Print Resolution to 360 ppi (not accepting the native ppi which was
something like 341) and turning off all output sharpening.

I know that tweaking the Print Resolution is not the recommended procedure but it works for me.  I
assumed it to be some interpolation/aliasing issue between the Epson R2400 driver (1440 is a multiple
of 360) and Lightroom's output rendering.

The image I used was an ACR of a Canon 450 Raw file - portrait.  The level of detail I saw the
differences in were, for example, on wisps of hair on middle distance figures and other very fine
detail. I have not actually photographed any images containing text but I can imagine that
photographed text might demonstrate the issue very well.

To test this idea I suggest one might try printing the same image from LR at 360 ppi rather than
native and see if it improves things. It works for me with my setup.

I hope this helps.

Peter

[Pandora]

Hello Peter.....

Welcome to your first "public" post here.... ;-)

One thing you mentioned in your post was that you were using LR 1.41 when you discovered this; as I'm sure you know LR 2.1 printing has changed significantly; are you still seeing this in 2.1 as well?

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

Well I have egg on my face now.  Have just upgraded to LR 2.1 and it seems to have solved the problem completely.  A very definite improvement. Thanks for your gentle encouragement Todd.

Apologies for muddying the water a bit.

Peter

[madmanchan]

An obvious point, but why should this matter? What if a photograph has elements in it that very much resemble the character of text...? Should it then go through PS rather than Lr. Seems like an error in Lr to me.

But I would love a further, more technical explanation. And if nothing else, a note from Adobe "Hey, don't print text from Lightroom...that's not what it's meant for."

Eric

Hi Eric, the reason it matters is that once text is "burned into" an image then LR has no way to infer that the pixels comprising a letter actually belong to text. In other words, LR cannot tell whether a given pixel in the image originally came from text, vector art, or a photographic image. In graphics speak, we say that the text or line art has been rasterized and composited into the background image. If you do have a very high-res image with text, then it should print reasonably well. But if the image containing text needs to be resampled prior to printing, then it is very unlikely to look good upon output.

In PS, I believe the situation is different because a text layer doesn't have to get rasterized to the image until the final output printing resolution is known.

[Tklimek]

Hi Eric, the reason it matters is that once text is "burned into" an image then LR has no way to infer that the pixels comprising a letter actually belong to text. In other words, LR cannot tell whether a given pixel in the image originally came from text, vector art, or a photographic image. In graphics speak, we say that the text or line art has been rasterized and composited into the background image. If you do have a very high-res image with text, then it should print reasonably well. But if the image containing text needs to be resampled prior to printing, then it is very unlikely to look good upon output.

In PS, I believe the situation is different because a text layer doesn't have to get rasterized to the image until the final output printing resolution is known.

Bingo.......so once it's baked in....it becomes just like any other part of the image.  Now I can understand why in Photoshop that might not be the case....because you can have your "text" in another layer which is NOT treated the same as the image but, in fact, as type.  Sounds like if you "baked" your layers together and only had a single image; Photoshop would do no better than Lightroom.  That makes sense now.

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

[jmwscot]

But if the image containing text needs to be resampled prior to printing, then it is very unlikely to look good upon output

Eric, I now understand why text can look slightly soft in LR although images look great.

If you print a file actual size such as a PSD with text and photographic image, LR always resamples the image no matter whether the resolution box is ticked or not. That explains everything. Thank you for the clarification.

Regards, John