Soft proofing

[Mark D Segal]

Glad to hear it's fixed. Some of us should have thought of that too, perhaps, but it really is unusual for printer drivers to be corrupted, so we all go to the usual culprits first. Good lesson to try to think of EVERYTHING.

[nemophoto]

I think Jeff hit the proverbial nail on the head regarding the brightness of display monitors. I have two 24" monitors and during calibration and use, I actually have to manually turn down the brightness to only 20%! As it is, I calibrate the upper end to 200. Much dimmer and I start having color shifts.

However, the error I believe I see is two-fold. Number One: you really should be using a calibrated lightbox (not bulbs) to properly view a match print. Number Two: your 4700 degree bubs are significantly warmer than your calibration setting of 6500. While theoretically, this should only effect color, in practice, I've seen it effect perceived density and contrast. You might want to consider buying yourself a light booth such as a JUST Normlicht. I proof a lot of prints for offset printing (both from RGB and CMYK files) and nail it 95% of the time.

Nemo

[Photo Op]

Really Mark, printing from Photoshop is so last millennium...whether you need a large or a small print, Lightroom allows you to keep a single image optimized for output (from the soft proofing) and make whatever size print you need off of that master tiff image. Yes, if you change printers/paper you have to pop the image open again (easy to do in Lightroom) to select a different soft proof setting...but the ability to have only ONE master rendered image (aside from the original raw file) for whatever size print you need is pretty compelling...

Jeff-what do you mean by "select a different soft proof setting". And do you mean from Lr edit in Photoshop?

[Schewe]

Jeff-what do you mean by "select a different soft proof setting". And do you mean from Lr edit in Photoshop?

I keep a master layered TIFF file with soft proof settings for all my standard papers and printers. Currently I print from a 3880 and a 9900 generally using Luster, EFP, Sommerset Velvet and occasionally matte on the 3880. So, it's possible an image might have 5 or 6 separate soft proof settings (although I've found very little difference between Luster and EFP on the 9900). So in reality I would usually only have 2-3 settings saved off as layer groups at the top of the layer stack.

Course, I do then have to open the layered image from Lightroom to Photoshop to confirm what settings are on and resave before printing...but that's pretty quick.

[Photo Op]

Course, I do then have to open the layered image from Lightroom to Photoshop to confirm what settings are on and resave before printing...but that's pretty quick.

Thanks Jeff. Too bad LR doesn't have that soft proof thingy!  

[Nill Toulme]

Weird... I would have thought "corrupted drivers" would have resulted in something more dire than merely too-dark prints.

Nill

[jljonathan]

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.

Mark
I am using your procedure to try and make a better match between monitor and print. Just wondering why you suggest reprinting if the print looks too dark or light. Shouldn't one print do it? Since no adjustments are made, neither the softproof nor the different calibration targets would effect the print. Just make a print, view under softproof and then make your target changes until you have a decent match. Sound OK? With an Imac/Coloreyes-Spyder2 and dim conditions here, 120cd/m2 seems to be the closest match.
BTW, Would the prints rendering intent effect things in any significant way?
Jonathan

[Mark D Segal]

Every time you need to recalibrate and reprofile, you need to reprint to test the match.

Rendering Intent as between RelCOl or Perceptual makes a difference if there are out-of-gamut colours. They handle OOG colours differently.

[jljonathan]

Every time you need to recalibrate and reprofile, you need to reprint to test the match.

Rendering Intent as between RelCOl or Perceptual makes a difference if there are out-of-gamut colours. They handle OOG colours differently.

Mark
Why would the print change? I tried two monitor profiles, 90cd/m2 and 110 and printed both. The prints look exactly the same. Softproof and the different monitor profiles don't seem to effect the result of the print, only how it compares to the monitor. One print should do it.  Maybe I'm missing the point your making.
Jonathan

[Mark D Segal]

The link you are missing is that if you change the appearance of an image on your display and that change causes you to amend the adjustments you make to the image, or if you use another rendering intent, the print will not come out the same. If, however, you are not changing any of the file numbers or the rendering intent, nothing you do to the display will cause the print to change.

[David Saffir]

as far as I know, Lightroom does not permit soft proofing. The image on screen is "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB, which has a white point of 5500k.

There is an article on my blog about screen to print match and soft proofing.

David

[Mark D Segal]

as far as I know, Lightroom does not permit soft proofing. The image on screen is "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB, which has a white point of 5500k.

There is an article on my blog about screen to print match and soft proofing.

David

Correct - we can't softproof from LR - yet.

Under the hood LR works in linear ProPhoto colour space, but on screen it is a non-linear representation. The white point depends on the display value you use when you calibrate your display before profiling it. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but the colour space itself does not have any particular white point.

[jljonathan]

The link you are missing is that if you change the appearance of an image on your display and that change causes you to amend the adjustments you make to the image, or if you use another rendering intent, the print will not come out the same. If, however, you are not changing any of the file numbers or the rendering intent, nothing you do to the display will cause the print to change.

OK. Now I see that we are talking about two different things. I am not amending adjustments to the image, as you suggested up top "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." I am just working within this framework, of trying to get the print to match the best profile under soft proof. So, no adjustments=one needs only one print of the unadjusted Atkinson image. Right? Next stage, after getting things close, would use adjustments of my own image under softproof, and then I would reprint to check. Once that's close, I move to LR and print that softproof adjusted image to see if they're close. But, the first round with the Atkinson image only requires one unadjusted print. How about trying to print the unadjusted Atkinson image in LR?  That might also shed some light on the issue.
Thanks
Jonathan

[Mark D Segal]

Yup, OK we're on the same wavelength here. All sounds good. Yes, you should see some difference between the adjusted under softproof and unadjusted Atkinson image both printed from LR. If you print the same file with the same file numbers from LR it should look awfully close to the equivalent print from PS.

[Schewe]

The image on screen is "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB, which has a white point of 5500k.

Actually, ProPhoto RGB's white point is D50 (5000ºK plus tint correction) not 5500ºK...and the image on screen is NOT "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB...the image is "corrected" for proper display in your display's profile FROM the image's color space–whatever that might be.

You might want to be more precise in your description of what's going on...

[David Saffir]

Actually, ProPhoto RGB's white point is D50 (5000ºK plus tint correction) not 5500ºK...and the image on screen is NOT "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB...the image is "corrected" for proper display in your display's profile FROM the image's color space–whatever that might be.

You might want to be more precise in your description of what's going on...

You are correct, sir! Thank you!


David

[jljonathan]

Actually, ProPhoto RGB's white point is D50 (5000ºK plus tint correction) not 5500ºK...and the image on screen is NOT "corrected" to ProPhoto RGB...the image is "corrected" for proper display in your display's profile FROM the image's color space–whatever that might be.

You might want to be more precise in your description of what's going on...

I know this is probably a question that's gonna show my ignorance of this subject, but, if we're using ProPhoto RGB both in PS and LR, then why aren't we calibrating our monitors to D50 2.2? Answer: I think it might have something to do with viewing conditions?