I have a couple of good friends, professional photographers, who print their own work. They both said they never did softproofing, and asked if I would show them how to do it. I've been softproofing, as well as profiling my monitors and papers for several years, depending on softproofing to keep me from unpleasant surprises.
I guess, because I always have the icc profile files placed in the Windows/System32/Spool/Drivers/Color folder, I somehow expected to see the paper profiles for my friends' printers in the drop-down box in CS4's View>Proof Setup>Custom dialog box under "device to simulate, and was surprised when I was unable to find any of their papers listed.
Friend #1 uses a Wndows PC with XP, and CS4, with an Epson 7600 printer. The printer name came up in the dropdown box, but the listing for Epson Premium Glossy and Premium Luster did not show up, so I did not know what profile to choose for the softproofing. In addition, when he brought up the print dialog I saw that he had "Printer Manages Color" selected. The paper-type dropdown menu did show the variety of papers he uses. He did not want me to change his settings to Photoshop managing color, so I assume there is no way for him to softproof his images. Is that correct?
Friend #2 uses WinXP and an Epson 1280, but has printer color management turned off, and lets Photoshop manage the color. She said she uses Epson Premium Luster and Epson Premium Glossy also. Much to my surprise, when I tried to set up a custom softproofing I could find the name of her printer but not any of her papers.
The questions: 1) Would I be correct in assuming that the profiles provided by Epson for both of them would be in some folder where their printer and driver are installed? 2) If so, should I copy them to the Color folder in Windows, so that thaey show up in the Proof Setup Custom dialogue?
It has been so long since I worked without either custom or home made profiles that I automatically assumed that everybody's paper profiles showed up int the Color folder in XP.