Soft proofing

[Mark F]

I have been soft-proofing my images before saving back to LR and printing, but the first print is always much too dark.  I have calibrated and re-calibrated my monitor, color management is turned off in printer settings, and  the correct profile is being used. I've begun making the soft-proofed image very bright to compensate, but still need 3 or 4 prints to get it right.

It seems to me that defeats the purpose of soft proofing and I might as well print directly from LR without soft proofing. My impression from studying the Reichmann/Schewe Camera to Print tutorial is that the first print should pretty much match the soft proofed image on the monitor. Is this too optimistic or do I have a broken link in the chain? Would the monitor calibration be most likely? Any way to tell for sure?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm using a 24" iMac, Epson 4880 and Epson Ultra Premium Luster with profile PLPP260.

Thanks.

[Mark D Segal]

What are the calibration settings for your display and what ambient light are you working in? It is possible that your perception of brightness is being exaggerated by an overly bright display causing you to adjust the images darker than they should be relative to the light in which you will be viewing them.

[Jonathan Wienke]

+1 to what Mark said. Correctly balancing monitor brightness to ambient brightness is necessary to match brightness between monitor ant print.

[Schewe]

It seems to me that defeats the purpose of soft proofing and I might as well print directly from LR without soft proofing. My impression from studying the Reichmann/Schewe Camera to Print tutorial is that the first print should pretty much match the soft proofed image on the monitor. Is this too optimistic or do I have a broken link in the chain?

You have a broken link in the chain...

The simple fact is that COLOR MANAGEMENT is easy...tone management is much, much harder.

If your display vastly out lights your print lighting, then the odds are EXCELLENT that your print will be darker than your display...

If you calibrate and then profile your display at a high luminosity output, no print available on the market will match it...and the odds are the print will appear rather dark.

This is the problem and disconnect in the display industry at the moment. Some companies equate massive luminosity output and really high contrast ratios as a good thing...for the purpose of gaming and recreational use of the computer, that might be true. However, if your needs go toward accurate display to print matching, the current industry for displays sucks. If you CAN'T lower the display output low enough to match the illumination of your printed output, your prints will ALWAYS be darker than your display...there are countless threads and discussions about this issue...it's an issue that Michael and I will be addressing in the not too distant future...

But I'm here to say, if you carefully (and knowledgeably) calibrate and accurately profile your display–with an LCD achieving in the range of 120 to 140 cd/m2 and your print viewing light roughly equal in luminosity to your display, yes, soft proofing and accurately adjusting the image should get you a HIGH % of first print acceptable results (assuming you know what you are doing).

Bottom line, if your print is dark, your display is too light–or your print viewing light is too dark. Pretty easy to figure out which is which...

[Nill Toulme]

...But I'm here to say, if you carefully (and knowledgeably) calibrate and accurately profile your display–with an LCD achieving in the range of 120 to 140 cd/m2 and your print viewing light roughly equal in luminosity to your display, yes, soft proofing and accurately adjusting the image should get you a HIGH % of first print acceptable results (assuming you know what you are doing).

This is a question I keep coming back to again and again.  I have concluded (or, you might say, I assume) that this very typical "normal" range of 120-140 cd/m² is based on a fairly bright, office-type working environment.  I have worked my way down to 80 cd/m² for my own very dim workspace.  (And I observed, FWIW, that NEC Spectraview II's "Print Standard" target setting is also, perhaps only coincidentally, 80 cd/m².)  

But every time I say that, someone comes back and says that's way too dim, and that I'm down into the shadow blocking range of my monitor (NEC 2090uxi), and that this is all very bad.  So I remain confused about it, but it seems to be working, more or less.  (The monitor calibrates just fine at that level.)

Nill

[Mark D Segal]

Jeff, I find even 120-140 cd/m2 is somewhat bright, but this is so sensitive to one's environment. I'm calibrated at about 110 and this works well, having a really low lit envronment of 2*60 watt shaded incandescents about 8 feet from my shaded, matte display (and perpendicular) just so I can see what I'm doing. Then I have a string of 6*50 Watt Solux bulbs on a ceiling track about 6 feet or so above the desk. When I turn that on to view the prints on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk which had been soft-proofed in these display conditions (and printed in my 3800) the results are fine. I think this just goes to emphasize the point that there really is a huge disconnect between transmitted and reflected light, and these displays do need to be toned-down quite a lot for reliable soft-proofing. And as you say, this is where displays can be a real problem. I think an important parameter for selecting a display is whether it can be toned down to this kind of luminosity while maintaining even lighting and good image quality accross the panel.

[Mark D Segal]

This is a question I keep coming back to again and again.  I have concluded (or, you might say, I assume) that this very typical "normal" range of 120-140 cd/m² is based on a fairly bright, office-type working environment.  I have worked my way down to 80 cd/m² for my own very dim workspace.  (And I observed, FWIW, that NEC Spectraview II's "Print Standard" target setting is also, perhaps only coincidentally, 80 cd/m².)  

But every time I say that, someone comes back and says that's way too dim, and that I'm down into the shadow blocking range of my monitor (NEC 2090uxi), and that this is all very bad.  So I remain confused about it, but it seems to be working, more or less.  (The monitor calibrates just fine at that level.)

Nill

Nil, if 80 works for you I don't see there's a problem you need to worry about regardless of what people say. At that level, the risk is that you would be opening the shadows too much and getting overly bright prints, but if that's not happening, sounds fine.

[Ray]

I sympathise with anyone having trouble getting their print to match the display. There are so many factors that can contribute towards a mismatch. If your monitor is an LCD, merely having the monitor tilted can cause a mismatch.

I'm still using a Sony CRT display because it lends itself admirably to an accurate calibration with the i1 Display2 colorimeter and iMatch software in fully automatic mode. I simply set my monitor to maximum contrast and minimum brightness, and away I go. As easy as falling off a log.

However, this was not always the case. My first colorimeter was the Spyder, and I was using canned profiles with an Epson 1290. I had quite a lot of trouble, similar to what you seem to be experiencing. I needed to make trial prints then adjust the brightness and so on. It was a very unsatisfactory situation.

I now use an Epson 7600, but the canned profiles are rather special because they were made by Bill Atkinson. Apparently the Epson professional printers exhibit less variability than the prosumer dektop models, so a generic profile for a specific paper type and professional printer model can still produce good results.

As regards ambient lighting, there's a distinct difference between the transmissive nature of a monitor and the reflective nature of a print. To take a couple of extreme examples, if you were to make your prints in the evening with the lights off, you would expect the prints to be darker than the monitor when viewed in a dark room. On the other hand, those same prints would look much lighter when viewed in full daylight, and even brighter when viewed in direct sunlight.

Another issue is choice of rendering intent in 'proof setup' and selection of 'simulate paper color' or 'simulate black ink'. My preference is to choose 'simulate paper color', which dulls the image on the monitor considerably, then make adjustments in contrast, brightness and saturation to get the image looking more or less as it looked before I ticked 'proof colors'.

Some photographers seem to prefer 'simulate black ink'. You can't have both.

I should add, I also use the excellent-value Qimage for all my printing. Be aware that you must specify the printer profile, the embedded image profile (sRGB or ProPhoto etc) and the rendering intent, before hitting the 'print' button.

[Mark F]

First. thanks to all for helping.

I am viewing the prints in the same room as the monitor so the light is the same for both. The room is lit by Solux 4700K bulbs. I have set the Color Eyes software to D65, 120cd/m2 and those are the values listed in Current System Profile section of the software. Attached is a snapshot of the Current System Profile screen.

Jeff, if you are reading this, I followed your technique of splitting the screen between the original and a copy with soft proof turned on for the copy. I then use curves etc to get the two images to look similar. Save the soft proofed back to LR and print. Is this what you mean by "assuming I know what I am doing". Seriously, if I am missing something I would love to know. The difference is very noticeable, maybe a stop and a half.  Medium toned sky turns cobalt blue and a lot of detail is lost in the shadows.

I could change the calibration targets but would that matter since I am judging the monitor image and print in the same light?  And yes, I do turn away from the monitor when viewing the print.

[Mark D Segal]

Have you tried making the print directly from Photoshop rather than sending the file back to LR? This may be a useful thing to do and see whether the result differs, just in case there is something getting messed-up on the return trip. No doubt you have colouor management turned off in the printer driver?

[Ray]

By the way, just out of curiosity, when I made my post, it was immediately behind Jonathan's post. After making my post, I returned to the thread and viewed all the posts in order. Mine was the fourth post, immediately after the OP's, Mark's and Jonathan's.

My post is now the 8th post. Not that I mind. I'm just curious as to the process going on. Clearly, if someone makes a post, it's in response to what's already been written. Having made such a response, if one later finds, say an hour later, that another 4 posts preceded one's own post, that one never saw, there would seem to be something wrong or amiss.

[Mark D Segal]

By the way, just out of curiosity, when I made my post, it was immediately behind Jonathan's post. After making my post, I returned to the thread and viewed all the posts in order. Mine was the fourth post, immediately after the OP's, Mark's and Jonathan's.

My post is now the 8th post. Not that I mind. I'm just curious as to the process going on. Clearly, if someone makes a post, it's in response to what's already been written. Having made such a response, if one later finds, say an hour later, that another 4 posts preceded one's own post, that one never saw, there would seem to be something wrong or amiss.

The elves in cyberspace are out to get you!  

[Schewe]

Jeff, if you are reading this, I followed your technique of splitting the screen between the original and a copy with soft proof turned on for the copy. I then use curves etc to get the two images to look similar. Save the soft proofed back to LR and print. Is this what you mean by "assuming I know what I am doing". Seriously, if I am missing something I would love to know. The difference is very noticeable, maybe a stop and a half.

If you are seeing a stop or stop 1/2 then something is screwed...

Seriously, I've been doing this since the old EFI Color Cachet days where you looked at a printed example and screwed up your display to match it–it actually worked (after a fashion) in 1995-19966).

If you are correctly soft proofing and your print is 1-1.5 stop down from the soft proof, then your display is too bright or your print viewing light s too dim. Seriously...matching your display luminance to your print luminance is critical.

[Ray]

The elves in cyberspace are out to get you!  

Mark,

I'm not into conspiracy theories. I'm concerned about the practical implications. If I take the trouble to make a response and I later find that others have already answered the question, I'm clearly wasting my time.

I merely ask, how has this happened? Whatever the time differences between countries, these signals over the internet take place at the speed of light, or maybe slightly less.

If there's some other factor causing a time delay, please tell me what it is. You're an engineer, aren't you?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi!

My suggestion may be that you measure a piece of white paper in your viewing environment with a light meter (measuring reflected light). Than you open a new image in Photoshop with white background and adjust brightness to the same as your viewing environment.

You may also try get an "ott-lite" or Solux task lamp and see if your prints are dark under proper illumination. I got mine from here:

http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.p...&xSec=10317

Best regards
Erik

First. thanks to all for helping.

I am viewing the prints in the same room as the monitor so the light is the same for both. The room is lit by Solux 4700K bulbs. I have set the Color Eyes software to D65, 120cd/m2 and those are the values listed in Current System Profile section of the software. Attached is a snapshot of the Current System Profile screen.

Jeff, if you are reading this, I followed your technique of splitting the screen between the original and a copy with soft proof turned on for the copy. I then use curves etc to get the two images to look similar. Save the soft proofed back to LR and print. Is this what you mean by "assuming I know what I am doing". Seriously, if I am missing something I would love to know. The difference is very noticeable, maybe a stop and a half.  Medium toned sky turns cobalt blue and a lot of detail is lost in the shadows.

I could change the calibration targets but would that matter since I am judging the monitor image and print in the same light?  And yes, I do turn away from the monitor when viewing the print.

[Mark D Segal]

Mark,

I'm not into conspiracy theories. I'm concerned about the practical implications. If I take the trouble to make a response and I later find that others have already answered the question, I'm clearly wasting my time.

I merely ask, how has this happened? Whatever the time differences between countries, these signals over the internet take place at the speed of light, or maybe slightly less.

If there's some other factor causing a time delay, please tell me what it is. You're an engineer, aren't you?

Nope, I'm not an engineer, I'm an economist specializing in energy infrastructure, with many decades love and experience of photography. I was pulling your leg, but you're obviously not in a mood to have your leg pulled. Ray, some things in life are real problems, others aren't. To each his own assessment of that. So on this question, what you'll get from me is humour or supposition - nothing of value to you I'm afraid. What I do know about the internet, however, is that somewhere along the line stuff can get delayed or dropped. It could be anywhere between your internet connection and the L-L servers. With email I know, because I've worked on it with my ISP once upon a time, one can diagnose the routing of messages and see exactly where the packets are being held-up. Whether this service and data would be available for Forum postings I simply don't know, but there is for sure a way of tracing stuff if one had to do it.

[Mark D Segal]

Hi!

My suggestion may be that you measure a piece of white paper in your viewing environment with a light meter (measuring reflected light). Than you open a new image in Photoshop with white background and adjust brightness to the same as your viewing environment.

You may also try get an "ott-lite" or Solux task lamp and see if your prints are dark under proper illumination. I got mine from here:

http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.p...&xSec=10317

Best regards
Erik

The correct way to start this would be, as you say in your last sentence - get proper print viewing illumination, (and be sure that the display can be sheltered from it). Now, to try helping the OP work through the diagnostic process, just in case he hasn't done all this already (I'm not saying he hasn't - this is contributed "just in case"). Use a well-known standard printer test image for making some comparisons - I recommend Bill Atkinson's printer test image - free download on his website. Make sure the correct printer profile is loaded in both the softproof condition and in the Photoshop print dialog. Make sure the paper selected in the printer driver is consistent with the paper you are using and the one to which the profile applies. Make sure colour management is turned off in the printer driver and turned on in Photoshop. Use Photoshop for printing, just to eliminate the possibility of PS:LR transition issues in the first round. Calibrate and Profile the display using a good colorimeter and software (I use Color Eyes Display and a DPT-94; very successfully). Set your first round of calibration conditions at 110 cd/m2, select a white point in the range of D50-D65 - perhaps 55 is a good place to start, and use gamma L* or 2.2. Profile your display and make sure this profile is the one loaded as you start work.  At 110cd/m2 display brightness, you should be working in a rather low light ambience. Still best to shield the display with a purpose-built hood on three sides. Look at the Atkinson image on your display with soft-proof active. Don't make any adjustments to Atkinson's print. Print it. turn on your print viewing light and compare what is on the display with what is on paper. If the print looks too dark or too light, recalibrate and reprofile the display with lower or higher cd/m2 and reprint. Repeat this process until the luminosity match is satisfactory. If it doesn't work within a range of 80 to 120 cd/m2, then something else is wrong, but as Jeff and I have said above, display conditions are most likely the locus of your problem. Now for the real acid-test, once your printer and your display are showing the Atkinson image to look about the same, take one of your images, correct it under soft-proof, print it, and see whether the comparison holds up. It should. What I've laid out here in a nutshell is how to systematically test and create an open-loop colour-managed workfow based on printing from Photoshop. If all comes out well printing from Photoshop, then try sending the image back to LR for printing. If it doesn;t come out either the same or very close, then there is something to think about between PS and LR, but I suspect this is not the problem.

[Mark F]

Jeff, I believe you that soft proofing should work. Clearly something is either not configured properly or I am doing something wrong.

Mark, thank you for the detailed instructions. I have not tried printing a standardized image but will do so and follow the suggestions in your post.  I really want to get this fixed.  I have just downloaded the test prints from Bill Atkinson's site and there are three labeled as "Print with Profile" and 3 as "Print without Profile". I assume  should use the one with a profile labeled Lab Test Page, and import into PS, which I have configured to use ProPhoto? See attached screen capture.

Again, thanks.

[bjanes]

My suggestion may be that you measure a piece of white paper in your viewing environment with a light meter (measuring reflected light). Than you open a new image in Photoshop with white background and adjust brightness to the same as your viewing environment.

That is an interesting exercise, and there may be come confusion relating the suggested luminance of the monitor (around 120 cd/m^2) with the ISO 3664 P2 standard which specifies a viewing illuminance of 500 lux (ICC link). The Photometry FAQ gives the answer: "The perfect diffuse reflector emits 1/p units of luminance per unit illuminance. If the reflectance is r, then the luminance is r times the illuminance." This is using a unit that has the factor of (1/p) built in (apostilb).

An average white paper has a reflectance of about 90%. The luminance of the paper viewed under an illuminance of 500 lux would have a luminance of 500*pi * 0.90 = 143 cd/m^2. This is somewhat brighter than recommended on this thread.

[ghaynes754]

Mark

Maybe the Epson Printer Profile is the culprit.  If you can't profile the output you might want to try the trial version of Colorbyte Imageprint 8.  Download and install the demo program, actually the full program just coded to print demo across the print.  Download the appropriate Colorbyte profile and give it a shot.  Epson has always said that they express no warranty on their profiles.  But if you have the display calibrated, are selecting the appropriate profile while softproofing and printing, then the third leg of the stool would be a bad profile.