Printing in LR 3...can't quite get there

[Pete JF]

Im helping a friend who has LR 3 and an Epson R2880. He's on brand new Imac running an up to date OS. The screen has been calibrated in Sys Prefs..he doesn't have a monitor profiling kit yet.

So, When we print out of PS Elements using Epson profiles for Prem Gloss and no color adjustment etc..we get acceptable, accurate looking prints.

However, coming straight out of LR3, we get prints which are close in basic value (light/dark) and decent contrast, but the colors are washed out.. with wimpy color.

We've messed about but can't seem to get over this hurdle. Wondering if someone could reference a workflow or list a routine for getting decent prints.

After going through PS elements and seeing acceptable results, Im fairly certain the monitor profile is close enough for him to get a reasonable print from LR

Thanks..

[dgberg]

Pete,
When you say straight out of Lightroom are you using the same paper profile?
Would probably work better if you started at the beginning of your Lightroom workflow and give us all your settings.

[dchew]

I wonder if the images are missing their tagged profiles.  You might not notice it in Elements if the working space is sRGB.  Not sure what LR would do given Melissa RGB's very wide space.

I don't know Elements.  Can you verify the working space and profile?

Regardless, in LR you normally select the paper profile at the bottom left panel "Print Job > Color Management > [select paper profile].  Then when you hit "Print" turn off the color management in the printer driver.  You can also do it by hitting "Print Settings."

Dave

[Pete JF]

We loaded all the appropriate EPson profiles into the system (mac) and they apear in the LR profile menu..we select the Premium glossy there.

in LR preferences we selected Adobe RGb because that's what we're using in Elements..Elements limits color spaces when selecting 'high quality output' or somesuch.

LR? Do we have to tag these images with a color space before printing? Prophoto, melissa, Adobe 98?

Is LR operating most best in one of the larger spaces?

this is where I fall overboard because I dont use LR and im wandering around trying to set up his color management the way I'm used to doing it in PS, old school, I spose.

Select proper paper profile (say that ten times fast), turn off color management in the EP driver, let LR, or whomever, determine...

Hope that helps.

I dont have LR here, so I'm going on memory of the hoops we actually went through..

[dchew]

LR has a working space for viewing, which is Melissa RGB, similar to ProPhoto.  There is no changing that.  What you set in the preferences is what space the rendered image gets converted into when you edit files externally in PS or other programs.  You have to keep in mind that LR is really geared toward raw files.  There is no tagged profile with a raw file (it isn't rendered so there is no color space).  In the case of printing raw files the image goes straight from a raw state into the paper profile.

In your case, these are rendered files, i.e. psd's, tiffs or jpegs.  As long as the image is tagged on import to LR, there should be no issues. Printing is easy as long as you make sure color management is handled by either LR or the print driver, but not both (just like PS). 

That's why I think your issues are either:
1.  There is no profile tagged to the images.  If that is the case, open the image in elements and try to assign a profile before saving (I would assign the same profile as the working space in Elements, which sounds like Adobe RGB).

2.  You have color management either on or off in both LR and the printer driver.  The paper profile is selected in the bottom right panel when in Print Mode.  Then hit "Print" and double check that color management is off in the Epson driver.  From your last post it certainly sounds like you are doing things right in LR, so I lean towards a problem with how the images are tagged coming into LR.

Unfortunately I can't remember exactly how LR works on tagged and untagged rendered files.  I think it converts the image into Melissa RGB for viewing purposes only.  During printing it should go directly from the tagged image profile into the paper profile, but I can't remember.  Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) would know right off the top of his head what happens in a case where there is no profile.

Dave

[Schewe]

Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) would know right off the top of his head what happens in a case where there is no profile.

I'm not Andrew but I'm sure he would agree...if there is an untagged RGB image in Lightroom, it assumes the color space to be sRGB.

[dchew]

Thanks Jeff.

[Rhossydd]

LR has a working space for viewing, which is Melissa RGB, similar to ProPhoto.  There is no changing that. 

It's actually more complicated than that.
Have a look at http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS268F3399-80B2-4169-A598-04C7F769FFA0.html
From that you'll see that in the library module you're actually looking at AdobeRGB colourspace images most of the time. I'd also assume that those aRGB previews will be used by the slideshow, web and print modules too.
The implication is that you'll only see the full MelissaRGB colourspace images in the develop module or when seen in loupe view in the library module.

Anything imported untagged is assumed to be sRGB