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Author Topic: The Digital Print  (Read 63593 times)

MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #40 on: November 26, 2012, 10:32:25 pm »

...For prints, I really only care what the colors are gonna look like...not the fact they may be out of gamut. Then, depending on the appearance under soft proofing, you can manually adjust the image to achieve the appearance at output...

That really sums it up nicely!

The fly in the ointment, as you point out, is if colors are out of your display gamut.  Introduces some guesswork into the process.  Lightroom happily gives us a warning for that when softproofing.  But what is LR giving us a warning for?  It would be most useful if LR is telling us that the colors in the final output color space are unable to be displayed on the monitor.  However, some think that LR is telling us that the colors in its internal processing color space (Melissa RGB, I believe) cannot be displayed.  Is there a definitive answer to this question? 
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Schewe

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #41 on: November 26, 2012, 11:45:17 pm »

Is there a definitive answer to this question? 

There are two different gamut warnings in LR soft proofing...the one on the right side of the histogram tells you what is out of gamut when looking at the output profile shown in red...and the display gamut on the left (of your actual display profile, not LR's working space) in blue...

In both cases, it's a binary in/out of gamut and tells you nothing about how far out of gamut it may be. Using a wide gamut display cuts way down on the display out of gamut warning (blue). The wide gamut of my 900 series Epson printers also shows much less out of gamut color for print. YMMV...(depending on display & printer you are using).
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #42 on: November 27, 2012, 12:43:54 am »

There are two different gamut warnings in LR soft proofing...the one on the right side of the histogram tells you what is out of gamut when looking at the output profile shown in red...and the display gamut on the left (of your actual display profile, not LR's working space) in blue...

Not sure I made this clear.

It would be most useful if the gamut warning on the left compared the display profile with the output profile.  But does it?

When Andrew Rodney evaluated softproofing of LR4 Beta he found differently.  See “Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video part 2” at http://www.digitaldog.net/

Rodney learned that the gamut warning on the left compares the gamut of the display with LR’s working space, Melissa RGB.  It does not compare the gamut of the display with the gamut of the output profile.  Hence, its utility is questionable.

Maybe this has been changed since LR4 Beta.  That is the question.
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Schewe

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #43 on: November 27, 2012, 01:07:19 am »

Rodney learned that the gamut warning on the left compares the gamut of the display with LR’s working space, Melissa RGB.  It does not compare the gamut of the display with the gamut of the output profile.  Hence, its utility is questionable.


If what you say about what Andrew thinks, I think Andrew is wrong...the display gamut warning shows colors in the raw image that can not be displayed in the gamut of your display profile. I don't think that 'Melissa RGB" has any impact...and no, of course it doesn't "compare" the gamut of anything...just colors that are technically out of gamut. You have to draw your own conclusion.

BTW, I have a suspicion that you are mistaking Andrew's conclusions...both gamut warnings are taking the image colors and determining whether or not they are in/out of gamut based on the display or output profile. I think you are making things more complicated than they are (or are misunderstanding how LR4 works).

In any case, what you really want to do is learn how to soft proof. Everything else is, well less useful. (I was gonna say bullshyte but resisted, ya know:~)
« Last Edit: November 27, 2012, 01:09:40 am by Schewe »
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #44 on: November 27, 2012, 02:55:33 am »

BTW, I have a suspicion that you are mistaking Andrew's conclusions...both gamut warnings are taking the image colors and determining whether or not they are in/out of gamut based on the display or output profile. I think you are making things more complicated than they are (or are misunderstanding how LR4 works).

In any case, what you really want to do is learn how to soft proof. Everything else is, well less useful. (I was gonna say bullshyte but resisted, ya know:~)

Yes, I will have to think this through more carefully.  Kudos for the verbal restraint :)
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #45 on: November 27, 2012, 10:28:11 am »

...BTW, I have a suspicion that you are mistaking Andrew's conclusions...both gamut warnings are taking the image colors and determining whether or not they are in/out of gamut based on the display or output profile. I think you are making things more complicated than they are (or are misunderstanding how LR4 works).

In any case, what you really want to do is learn how to soft proof. Everything else is, well less useful. (I was gonna say bullshyte but resisted, ya know:~)

Jeff,

I’m not sure I understand your answer, it’s a bit ambiguous to me, so let me try to make myself  more clear.  I agree some of this is borderline shyte but it does have implications of consequence.

Each pixel in the original image has a color I’ll call Lab(Original).  This value does not change.

During softproofing Lightroom creates a proof copy of the original image.  The pixels change as we make adjustments to the proof.  Label the color of the pixels in the proof Lab(Proof).  The Lab(Proof) values may or may not be the same as the Lab(Original) values, depending on adjustments the user makes.

Using the printer profile, LR can also calculate what each pixel on the print will look like to a standard observer.  Call the calculated color of the printed pixels Lab(Print).

LR calculates the LR(Print) values and uses those to generate the display we see during softproofing.  We are looking at the colors that will be on the print.  (Within limits).

To send an image to the printer or to calculate the Lab(Print) values, LR must bring Lab(Proof) values that fall outside the printer gamut into gamut.  Depending on the rendering intent, Lab(Proof) values within the printer gamut may also be changed.  In fact, nearly all values probably change regardless of rendering intent since tone mapping is required to squeeze the image’s dynamic range into the printer’s smaller dynamic range.  So most, if not all, of the Lab(Print) values are different than the Lab(Proof) values, though not by much in the ideal case.

The gamut warning on the right side of the histogram shows us where the Lab(Proof) values fall outside the printer’s gamut.

The gamut warning on the left shows us what?  It would be nice if it showed where the Lab(Print) values fall outside of the display’s gamut.  But what Andrew Rodney found (as I understood him; forgive me Andrew if I got this wrong) is that this warning instead shows where the Lab(Original) values fall outside the display’s gamut.  Or perhaps the Lab(Proof) values, but certainly not the Lab(Print) values.

Why is this important?  If I knew that I cannot see on my display how some of the colors will print, I might alter my workflow.  If it’s a small print I might just print it and see how it turns out.  If it’s a large print I might print just a small portion.  Or make changes to the proof image.  Etc.  But if I do not know that I’m not seeing the print colors I might be surprised by the print.

I learned several years ago from you and Michael to keep softproofing simple (“From Camera To Print – Fine Art Printing”) and that has worked well for me.  But here is a new tool from Lightroom that could help the process if it is designed to show us when the print colors cannot be displayed.

So that is the question: does the LR gamut warning on the left show us if the Original colors cannot be displayed?  Or the Proof colors?  Or the Print colors?  Or something else?

Mark
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Schewe

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #46 on: November 27, 2012, 11:55:11 am »

So that is the question: does the LR gamut warning on the left show us if the Original colors cannot be displayed?  Or the Proof colors?  Or the Print colors?  Or something else?

The blue out of gamut warning shows the colors of your image (not soft proofed) that are out of gamut from your display...pretty simple (and not all together all that useful). Again, don't get fixated on trying to deal with out of gamut colors, pay attention to what the color will look like by soft proofing.
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #47 on: November 27, 2012, 12:09:02 pm »

... not all together all that useful....pay attention to what the color will look like by soft proofing.

And I could do that better if I knew that some of the print colors were not being correctly displayed.  'Nuff said.  Thank you for the clarification.
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bjanes

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #48 on: November 28, 2012, 04:09:33 pm »

Not sure I made this clear.

It would be most useful if the gamut warning on the left compared the display profile with the output profile.  But does it?

When Andrew Rodney evaluated softproofing of LR4 Beta he found differently.  See “Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video part 2” at http://www.digitaldog.net/

Rodney learned that the gamut warning on the left compares the gamut of the display with LR’s working space, Melissa RGB.  It does not compare the gamut of the display with the gamut of the output profile.  Hence, its utility is questionable.

Maybe this has been changed since LR4 Beta.  That is the question.


I don't think you interpreted Andrew's post correctly, but you do raise a valid point. What colors in the print with the rendering intent in use are out of the gamut of the display? The left LR softproof shows colors in the image that are out of the gamut of the monitor and the proof on the right shows the colors in the image that are out of the gamut of the printer with the given paper and rendering intent.

The gamuts in question art those of the display, the printer, and the image. These gamuts will be limited by the working space of LR, which consists of ProPhoto primaries with a linear tone curve. Mellisa is ProPhoto with an sRGB tone curve and is used only to display the RGB info (in percentages) and the histograms. This working space is sufficiently wide so that any real world colors captured by the camera are unlikely to be clipped. One can use Colorthink to examine these gamuts.

I chose an image of a flower with saturated yellows as shown in the LR develop module. The image is exposed to the right with the red and green channels just short of clipping in a 12 bit raw file. Due to white balance, the red channel would be clipped without an exposure adjustment in LR. The raw histogram is shown with Rawdigger.





Here is the soft proof of the highlights for the Epson 3880 using Premium Glossy paper.



The image was exported in ProPhotoRGB and the gamuts were plotted with Colorthink and the gamuts are shown.



Discussion is welcome. The chosen photo is not intended to represent any artistic ideal but rather the gamut of an ordinary image.

Regards,

Bill
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digitaldog

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #49 on: November 28, 2012, 04:36:17 pm »

The gamut warning on the left shows us what?  It would be nice if it showed where the Lab(Print) values fall outside of the display’s gamut.  But what Andrew Rodney found (as I understood him; forgive me Andrew if I got this wrong) is that this warning instead shows where the Lab(Original) values fall outside the display’s gamut.  Or perhaps the Lab(Proof) values, but certainly not the Lab(Print) values.

I haven't read all the posts here but just in terms of Out Of Gamut (OOG) overlay:

Before LR 4 shipped (while it was in public beta), the soft proof for display operation didn't make much sense as it didn’t take the actual output profile into account. IOW, it didn't compare the output profile gamut to the display gamut profile. That was fixed in the final release (but I had to work hard to initially convince folks the original behavior wasn't helpful <g>). If memory serves, it compared the display profile to MelissaRGB NOT whatever profile you first selected. Again, it should work properly with the RC.

Both Photoshop AND Lightroom's gamut warnings are not accurate! All you have to do is take an sRGB image into LR, load sRGB and ask to see a gamut overlay. There should be none. But there is some overlay depending on the image. Adobe knows about this tiny disconnect and I don't think they'll do anything to fix it (cause the gamut overlay is kind of worthless anyway). Well it is kind of useful to see what OOG colors are in the image that fall outside display gamut. At least you get some idea on your sRGB display what you're not seeing!

Lastly, if you want to view a gamut plot, if you can, use Colorthink Pro. Other products don't always handle this correctly**

**http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Color_Management_Myths_26-28#Myth_26
« Last Edit: November 28, 2012, 04:39:14 pm by digitaldog »
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Johnny_Boy

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #50 on: November 28, 2012, 09:24:28 pm »

Who  is the intended audience? I bought the Lula printing video and it covers everything that are covered here (I think!), so I won’t personally be purchasing this book. I consider myself “intermediate” level printer.  I was a beginner about a year ago and a book like this would have been awesome rather than scrounging the internet to find bits and pieces of info, or reading thousands of forum threads on various sites with questionable expert information. (so the Lula Printing video was awesome for me).

So, if it is targeted for beginner, and intermediate printer, I would love to see a bit more focus on image processing. “Tone and color optimization” section might cover that, but the whole Chapter 3 seems to assume that you already have great image that is post processed really well.  I realized that if the original image is crappy, no matter how much compensation is made during the printing process, it still looks like crap on paper. (think of in audio term – badly mixed audio tracks will not be saved during the mastering process. But great mixed down audio tracks can be enhanced by great mastering process) 

Also, while people would find chapter 4 useful, things like that gets outdated too quickly as the software gets updated faster than print books. However I do not have alternative solution unless you are publishing this digitally and therefore can update the section frequently. I feel that you should almost focus on what type of generic setting to look out for (i.e. ensure that the profile you selected matches the paper you selected.) rather than walking through a screen shot of a very specific OS and software.

Chapter 5  is called Attributes of a Perfect Print but that is only the first half of the chapter. For lots of beginners selecting what substrates and finishing option to use and why are very useful info. I would much rather see a separate chapter just talking about paper selections, print finishing option and the presentation option. Maybe make that a chapter that comes between Chapter 3 and 4? You will have to talk about paper if you want to talk about gamut warning and output sharpening in which is depends on what substrate you print on.

Also I feel that “Attributes of Perfect Print” should talk more about process of improving the digital file to improve the final print rather than talk about digital artifacts and print viewing environment.
Often I feel that I just printed a “perfect print”. Two days later I make some slight adjustments to the source image and then I can’t believe I call the prints that I made 2 days ago “perfect print”. This is a haphazard process for me, but I would love to hear more about how others do this process.
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Schewe

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #51 on: November 28, 2012, 10:46:48 pm »

So, if it is targeted for beginner, and intermediate printer, I would love to see a bit more focus on image processing. “Tone and color optimization” section might cover that, but the whole Chapter 3 seems to assume that you already have great image that is post processed really well.

I guess you haven't read The Digital Negative, huh? If you had, you would realize this book is building on what I wrote in the first book...

As far as whether or not YOU might learn anything useful (having watched the C2PS I assume), well, that's a question you'll have to ask yourself when the book comes out. But, consider this...Mike and I shot C2PS almost two years ago. It's just possible I may have learned a thing or two since then.
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Johnny_Boy

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #52 on: November 29, 2012, 02:12:31 pm »

I guess you haven't read The Digital Negative, huh? If you had, you would realize this book is building on what I wrote in the first book...

Ahh! Didn't realize such book existed! This type of book is what I was looking for! Thanks, I will be ordering a copy pretty soon.

(So as far as the feedback on the ToC goes for this new book, it makes sense that you don't focus too much on the post processing itself.)
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #53 on: November 30, 2012, 01:21:35 am »

...Before LR 4 shipped (while it was in public beta), the soft proof for display operation didn't make much sense as it didn’t take the actual output profile into account. IOW, it didn't compare the output profile gamut to the display gamut profile. That was fixed in the final release (but I had to work hard to initially convince folks the original behavior wasn't helpful <g>).

Thank you, Rodney, for confirming that the OOG display overlay in LR4 highlights the colors of the print that cannot be displayed.  More useful than highlighting the colors of the original image that cannot be displayed.  Well done fighting that battle.

Non-quantified evidence that this correct: softproof an image (such as a spectrum of fully saturated colors) that has display OOG warning.  The warning areas will change as the output profile is changed, generally enlarging for larger gamut profiles (e.g., resin coated glossy), and shrinking for smaller gamut papers.
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #54 on: November 30, 2012, 01:40:11 am »

... The left LR softproof shows colors in the image that are out of the gamut of the monitor and the proof on the right shows the colors in the image that are out of the gamut of the printer with the given paper and rendering intent...

There are three images of concern here: the original image, the proof image (user adjusted during softproofing), and the print image (which you are looking at when softproofing).  The warnng on the right shows pixels in the proof image that are out of the printer’s gamut.  The warning on the left shows pixels in the print image that are out of gamut of your display.
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Damir

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #55 on: November 30, 2012, 06:27:56 am »

I guess you haven't read The Digital Negative, huh? If you had, you would realize this book is building on what I wrote in the first book...

As far as whether or not YOU might learn anything useful (having watched the C2PS I assume), well, that's a question you'll have to ask yourself when the book comes out. But, consider this...Mike and I shot C2PS almost two years ago. It's just possible I may have learned a thing or two since then.

Ahhh, another expense. I was not aware of that book, order it yesterday. Thank you for mention it.
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bjanes

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #56 on: November 30, 2012, 07:48:37 am »

There are three images of concern here: the original image, the proof image (user adjusted during softproofing), and the print image (which you are looking at when softproofing).  The warnng on the right shows pixels in the proof image that are out of the printer’s gamut.  The warning on the left shows pixels in the print image that are out of gamut of your display.

Mark,

The behavior that you and Andrew makes sense, but still Jeff Schewe does not seem to agree.


If what you say about what Andrew thinks, I think Andrew is wrong...the display gamut warning shows colors in the raw image that can not be displayed in the gamut of your display profile. I don't think that 'Melissa RGB" has any impact...and no, of course it doesn't "compare" the gamut of anything...just colors that are technically out of gamut. You have to draw your own conclusion.

BTW, I have a suspicion that you are mistaking Andrew's conclusions...both gamut warnings are taking the image colors and determining whether or not they are in/out of gamut based on the display or output profile. I think you are making things more complicated than they are (or are misunderstanding how LR4 works).

In any case, what you really want to do is learn how to soft proof. Everything else is, well less useful. (I was gonna say bullshyte but resisted, ya know:~)

The blue out of gamut warning shows the colors of your image (not soft proofed) that are out of gamut from your display...pretty simple (and not all together all that useful). Again, don't get fixated on trying to deal with out of gamut colors, pay attention to what the color will look like by soft proofing.

I think your concerns are valid and I would like to find out what is really going on. Did you perform the experiment that you suggested?

Regards,

Bill
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MarkH2

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #57 on: November 30, 2012, 10:56:09 am »

...Did you perform the experiment that you suggested?...

Bill,

I did perform the experiment.  In fact, that is what Andrew noticed and showed in his video referenced earlier – that the display oog warning did not change as the output profile was changed in LR4 beta.  It does change in the release LR4.

Jeff’s emphasis is to not get fixated on what is out of gamut.  He is encouraging us to softproof by adjusting the proof image to look like the original image.  Don’t get sidetracked trying to bring oog colors into gamut, let the software handle that while rendering the proof image to the output profile.  Simply look at the results and adjust to taste.  Go by what you see on screen.  I agree.  However, if what you see on screen is not what will print, that is useful to know.  That is what the display warning tells you.  Jeff also has a very wide gamut display, which helps a bunch.

Andrew’s video also makes a persuasive case that it is better to let Lightroom’s rendering to output profile handle oog colors rather than bringing oog colors into gamut yourself in the proof image.  To paraphrase Andrew:  don’t worry about all the red overlay … you can do an awful lot of work moving sliders around to bring colors in gamut for what is no gain.  “Let the icc profile do the gamut mapping.”

Not everyone appreciates the power of this softproof approach.  They instead tell you to bring oog colors into gamut yourself.  Surprisingly, even Adobe folks -- see, for example, Julieanne Kost’s “Soft Proofing in Lightroom 4” video.  LULA and friends are once again out front!

Mark
« Last Edit: November 30, 2012, 10:58:14 am by MarkH2 »
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Onslow

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #58 on: December 02, 2012, 05:31:57 pm »

I guess you haven't read The Digital Negative, huh? If you had, you would realize this book is building on what I wrote in the first book...

As far as whether or not YOU might learn anything useful (having watched the C2PS I assume), well, that's a question you'll have to ask yourself when the book comes out. But, consider this...Mike and I shot C2PS almost two years ago. It's just possible I may have learned a thing or two since then.

I too was not aware of this book. It is now in the post with me eagerly waiting delivery.... I have the LuLa C2PS and this book will help some of that info settle in.
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Timein

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Re: The Digital Print
« Reply #59 on: December 02, 2012, 09:31:18 pm »

I'm new to all of this so I would like to see a step by step of what to do to make the print. What settings do I need on my printer - setting print size, selecting paper, margins, etc. I'm also confused about printer profiles - how do I get them and when do you use them in Lightroom and when do you them in the printer and how do you set them.

I realize this may be assumed by many of your members but I sure would appreciate all the basic steps in a how to book. Thanks and looking forward to getting the book - and I need it before my wife starts questing why I bought all this equipment and she doesn't have any pictures of the grandchildren.
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