Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Mark F on January 22, 2010, 06:07:59 pm
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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.
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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.
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+1 to what Mark said. Correctly balancing monitor brightness to ambient brightness is necessary to match brightness between monitor ant print.
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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...
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...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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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 (http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1955&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.
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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.
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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 (http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1955&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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.color.org/v4_prmg.xalter)). The Photometry FAQ (http://www.optics.arizona.edu/Palmer/rpfaq/rpfaq.htm) 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.
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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.
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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.
Firstly, if it's an actual Epson-made profile, I'd be surprised if the Epson profile were the culprit. Huge numbers of people are using these profiles successfully, and they happen to be very good. I would only look upon printet profiling as part of the problem if there were reason to believe that something was unusual about how the printer is behaving, but if that's the case the printer should be repaired. But first try all colour management remedies before suspecting a printer problem. Secondly, ImagePrint is a waste of time and money unless the OP has special layout and archiving requirements that make it advantageous. I would recommend avoiding that approach and just getting basic colour management right.
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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.
The simple answer is "yes" (to the extent that a monitor and print can ever really match). A corollary to that answer is that it takes some experience to get things working so that your first print is just as you want (and that's not always true even for the real experts, but it's true a lot of the time). Even if your system and monitor brightness and everything else are set up optimally, there is some judgement involved, and that comes only with experience.
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The simple answer is "yes" (to the extent that a monitor and print can ever really match). A corollary to that answer is that it takes some experience to get things working so that your first print is just as you want (and that's not always true even for the real experts, but it's true a lot of the time). Even if your system and monitor brightness and everything else are set up optimally, there is some judgement involved, and that comes only with experience.
I wouldn't want the OP to be frightened by the idea that a great deal of experience and judgment is needed to get this right, because it's really not quite the case. After some initial experimentation and testing, the process should be reliable enough to work almost automatically and deliver satisfactory results most of the time (yes, there will always be some problematic images but those should be the exception, not the rule). One always needs to be aware that there is a fundamental difference between reflected and transmitted light, and a moderate mental adjustment of how one looks at these images comparatively is necessary, but for that too, getting accustomed to it doesn't take an age of time and experience.
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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?
Exactly my experience.
MacPro w\10.6.2
LR 2.6, LR 3Beta, CS4
Epson R2880 printer, latest Apple "provided" Snow Leopard pushed drivers
Monitor calibrated with most recent ColorEyes software and Spyder 3 spectro
Ilford and Red River paper using vendor provided icc's
Soft proof target (ProPhoto) in CS4. Print is "exactly" what appears in monitor. Color patches same color, tone, "whatever" same as screen.
Open same untagged target in LR (either version). Print with either paper with exactly the same settings as CS4.
Scenes in the LR print are similar to monitor and print from CS4. BUT, color patches and strips in the target are desaturated from the CS4 print. Black and White gradation tests are not as "good" as in CS4 print.
FWIW. I consider my workflow/calibrating to be working with CS4. Therefore, I would recommend the OP use CS4 and its softproofing/printing to determine whether his "calibrating" is working. In my opinion, LR still does not perform to its big brother's standards, for whatever the reason.
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Exactly my experience.
MacPro w\10.6.2
LR 2.6, LR 3Beta, CS4
Epson R2880 printer, latest Apple "provided" Snow Leopard pushed drivers
Monitor calibrated with most recent ColorEyes software and Spyder 3 spectro
Ilford and Red River paper using vendor provided icc's
Soft proof target (ProPhoto) in CS4. Print is "exactly" what appears in monitor. Color patches same color, tone, "whatever" same as screen.
Open same untagged target in LR (either version). Print with either paper with exactly the same settings as CS4.
Scenes in the LR print are similar to monitor and print from CS4. BUT, color patches and strips in the target are desaturated from the CS4 print. Black and White gradation tests are not as "good" as in CS4 print.
FWIW. I consider my workflow/calibrating to be working with CS4. Therefore, I would recommend the OP use CS4 and its softproofing/printing to determine whether his "calibrating" is working. In my opinion, LR still does not perform to its big brother's standards, for whatever the reason.
My recommendation to work within CS4 first is based on scientific procedure: to pare down the variables and analyze one at a time. Not that I necessarily expect there to be a problem with printing from LR, but nothing is impossible.
My experience printing from LR is that it works fine. But since I need to soft-proof in PS anyhow, I just print from there. I don't see the advantage of going back to LR for printing - for me it is just an unecesasry step. When soft-proofing comes to LR, my trips to PS will be very much reduced.
I don't recommend Ilford's profile for Gold Fibre Silk, if that's the paper being used. I've tried it and found it unsatisfactory (Epson 3800), so I made my own and the results are considerably better.
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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.
The Epson profile for Premium Luster is very accurate. My own prints and the Atkinson test print come out spot-on using that profile when printed on a 4880 and viewed using Solux lights (which, by the way, are well worth the modest cost). My monitor is calibrated at 140, I believe.
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My experience printing from LR is that it works fine. But since I need to soft-proof in PS anyhow, I just print from there. I don't see the advantage of going back to LR for printing - for me it is just an unecesasry step.
Really? You don't like to use custom print templates to maintain ease and consistency? You actually like having to open the Print dlog and the print driver dlog fro each and every print you ever make? You don't like Lightroom's output sharpening (and the improved ability to upsample)?
Lightroom is far more efficient in the printing workflow that even if I _DO_ go into Photoshop to soft proof (and do any major retouching) it's still worth it to me to go back to Lightroom for the printing...really!
:~)
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Really? You don't like to use custom print templates to maintain ease and consistency? You actually like having to open the Print dlog and the print driver dlog fro each and every print you ever make? You don't like Lightroom's output sharpening (and the improved ability to upsample)?
Lightroom is far more efficient in the printing workflow that even if I _DO_ go into Photoshop to soft proof (and do any major retouching) it's still worth it to me to go back to Lightroom for the printing...really!
:~)
Jeff - ya - really. Once I've softproofed, all I need to do to print is: (i) PK Output sharpen to taste (more controllable than that in LR), (ii) optional-flatten; (iii) click print once for the Photoshop dialog (which is all set-up and sticks aprt from clicking the Portrait or Lansscape buttons when needed) and quickly again for the Epson driver. (iv) By choice, the Epson print preview comes up to show me that the image is there centered as I like it. (v) Click print. All of this takes less time than it took me to write it down here. It's dead-easy. Two of these steps are optional, and the other three would be done in LR as well. As far as I'm concerned, for my usual workflow it's probably six of one, half a dozen of the other. I print them one at a time as I finish final review and tweaks - no batch printing.
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Two of these steps are optional, and the other three would be done in LR as well.
Uh no...if you know how to set up Lightroom templates, you NEVER have to see a print dlog again. You select the image and you "Print One) after selecting the proper template. In Lightroom all you need to do is select the correct template (one click), click on the Print One, (one click) and make sure your paper is loaded in the printer...
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...
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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...
I know the workflow and I've done it, but what's optimal, regardless of the millenium, depends on what one needs. I very seldom - if ever - print the same image at different sizes. For what I do most of the time - a one-off, one size, it's so quick and simple that there's little advantage sending the image back to LR for this purpose. It will be a whole different ballgame once LR has soft-proofing, and as you know, I along with many others have been recommending this to the developers for quite a while. Well, seems as if it MAY be *somewhat* around the corner (from what I've heard harder to do than to wish for), and when it happens, I'll definitely be printing directly from LR much of the time.
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...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...
This is exactly what has kept me printing with Qimage for years — along with its superb no-step upsizing and output sharpening algorithms. Utterly painless.
Nill
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...I am viewing the prints in the same room as the monitor so the light is the same for both. ...
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, forgive me if you're past this in the process, but these statements suggest to me that you're missing the point regarding ambient illumination. The fact that you're viewing the prints and the monitor in the same lighting is utterly irrelevant IMO. Gosh, my workroom is usually so dark I can hardly see to find the print, much less judge it (exaggeration, but slight).
The print should be judged in roughly the same type and level of illumination that you expect it to be viewed in after delivery. If that bears any relation to your working illumination, it's probably only coincidental.
Then you need to set your monitor luminance so it matches your print's brightness level to your own satisfaction. This is where your ambient working light level comes in. If you're working in a dark room, you will probably need to set your monitor somewhat darker, conversely for a brighter work environment.
Does that make sense? Sorry if I'm telling you something you'd already grasped, but your mention of the light being the same for your monitor and prints suggested to be that perhaps you had not.
And you others who understand all this a lot better than I do, please correct me if I'm, um, in the dark.
Nill
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If I can make a comment here regarding ambient lighting; regardless of whether your print matches your monitor, the appearance of the print will change according to ambient lighting conditions. It's impssible to make a print that looks the same under all lighting conditions. In dim lighting there will appear to be less detail in the shadows; in warm lighting the color hues will change, and in bright sunlight everything will appear as clear as a bell.
The ideal situation, it would appear to me, is to display your prints under the same lighting conditions they were created. If your monitor is calibrated to a D65, your ambient room lighting, or viewing booth, should also be D65, and the place where your prints are exhibited should then also have ambient D65 lighting. Is this not the case?
It would seem very unsatisfactory to me to have to adjust the brightness of one's monitor after calibration in order to match the brightness of a print which is viewed under darker conditions than the intended display conditions.
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Broadly agree about the matching as long as we're clear that you're discussing two separate issues here: temperature and luminosity. The choice within the range of say D50 and D65 relates to the temperature of the display lighting and the bulbs used for print viewing. Whether the light is dim or bright is the luminance adjustment, which for the display would be measured in cd/M2. I agree that aligning both makes sense, but it's not necessary to the Nth degree because visual adaptation to a certain range of differences works to our advantage.
(Quick edit after posting)
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Bill,
Thank's for doing the math! Two comments:
143 cd/m^2 is a bit brighter than what is suggested on this forum but it's still pretty close (at least same power of two ;-)
An issue may be that in many cases the prints are presented in much less light than recommended in the ISO standard and this is really part of the issue. The print looks right in your viewing booth or under your "task lamp" but it's dark and boring under less intense illumination.
Best regards
Erik
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 (http://www.color.org/v4_prmg.xalter)). The Photometry FAQ (http://www.optics.arizona.edu/Palmer/rpfaq/rpfaq.htm) 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.
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Broadly agree about the matching as long as we're clear that you're discussing two separate issues here: temperature and luminosity. The choice within the range of say D50 and D65 relates to the temperature of the display lighting and the bulbs used for print viewing. Whether the light is dim or bright is the luminance adjustment, which for the display would be measured in cd/M2. I agree that aligning both makes sense, but it's not necessary to the Nth degree because visual adaptation to a certain range of differences works to our advantage.
(Quick edit after posting)
Mark,
Of course you're right that it's not necessary to be precise to the Nth degree.
The precision in digital photography is mostly about lenses and camera bodies. The artistic results are infinitely variable.
It's possible to create a masterpiece with an unclaibrated monitor through pure chance. The print that you hang on your wall may improve according to the changing ambient lighting conditions. At 5pm in the evening, in the middle of winter, or the middle of summer, your print might look terrific.
It's really all about control at the time of printing.
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It's really all about control at the time of printing.
Plus everything up-stream of printing too which contributes to a proper colour-managed workflow.
I'm sure you know - while contemporary colour management can produce excellent results, it is neither perfect nor foolproof, so one of the points I was making is that we are fortunate insofar as our adaptive capacities help to overcome the "soft edges".
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I wouldn't want the OP to be frightened by the idea that a great deal of experience and judgment is needed to get this right, because it's really not quite the case. After some initial experimentation and testing, the process should be reliable enough to work almost automatically and deliver satisfactory results most of the time (yes, there will always be some problematic images but those should be the exception, not the rule). One always needs to be aware that there is a fundamental difference between reflected and transmitted light, and a moderate mental adjustment of how one looks at these images comparatively is necessary, but for that too, getting accustomed to it doesn't take an age of time and experience.
I agree with you - in fact, when I first set up a new computer and printer and calibrated the monitor, my very first print was "satisfactory" in that it was a good match to the screen. So yes, the technology, when properly applied, can give good results for the beginner. My comment was more relevant to the photographer who wants to go beyond "satisfactory," in which case experience is definitely required.
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I agree with you - in fact, when I first set up a new computer and printer and calibrated the monitor, my very first print was "satisfactory" in that it was a good match to the screen. So yes, the technology, when properly applied, can give good results for the beginner. My comment was more relevant to the photographer who wants to go beyond "satisfactory," in which case experience is definitely required.
Yea, but not with the colour-management set-up - more likely with working-around those situations where despite the best colour management one needs to make some "unusual" adjustments. This takes some experience. Yet again, not to exaggerate it.
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Problem solved!!! Hallelujah!! After spending hours and hours on Saturday and Sunday with the test prints and everything else that had been suggested it finally occurred to me that maybe there was something wrong with the printer so I called Epson tech support this morning. Reached a very knowledgeable guy right away and it turns out that the printer is ok but the drivers were corrupted. We uninstalled everything, downloaded the latest drivers and bingo! Problem solved.
I guess I should have thought of that earlier but I learned a lot along the way and really, really appreciate everyone's help.
Nills and Ray, I do understand that every room's ambient light will be different than every other's room, but my prints were so far off from the monitor that my initial goal was just to get the prints to match the monitor under the same light that the monitor was being viewed. Now that I've done that I can start tweaking. By the way, it is my understanding that many galleries use 3500K light bulbs and find that better shows off the work.
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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!
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Weird... I would have thought "corrupted drivers" would have resulted in something more dire than merely too-dark prints.
Nill
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 (http://davidsaffir.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/screen-to-print-match-for-photographers/) and soft proofing.
David
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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 (http://davidsaffir.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/screen-to-print-match-for-photographers/) 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.
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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
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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.
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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...
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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
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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?