Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: digitaldog on February 11, 2011, 01:10:50 pm
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I’m kind of at a loss why some are so down on soft proofing, to the degree they go out of their way to not recommend it. See: http://lightroomkillertips.com/2011/did-you-know-lightroom-can-soft-proof/#comment-19510
I’ve seen it work quite well, but I’m not expecting 100% visual match but a far superior simulation than without. What’s your opinion?
Also, we seem to have two camps; those that demand such functionality in products like Lightroom, and those that find it doesn’t work in Photoshop. Just make a print or tweak the file. Unlike politics or religion which is opinion based, this stuff should work (or not work), why the two differing groups here? What do we need from the color management community and software vendors to make this effective? Why do so many users today know and desire to calibrate their displays, but find soft proofing if failing them?
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I really wanted to check somewhere between sometimes and always ;) for any serious prints, i'll round trip into photoshop. I think a big issue thats doesn't get mentioned is being able to reproduce the print at a later date - color management / soft proofing gives me that confidence
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I have an NEC LCD 3090 that I calibrate with SpectraView II and either the Eye 1 Display 2 or the ColorMunki, depending on my mood. I print with an HP Z3100 with its built-in spectrophotometer, and I view my prints on a Just-Normlicht print viewer, adjusted in brightness to work well with my monitor.
I always use the softproofing in CS5 to adjust my image to compensate for the differences in tone, color, saturation and contrast in the softproofed version of the image compared with the optimized image. Then, because the softproofing in Qimage is about as accurate as that in CS5 but also shows the color changes of out of gamut colors, I go by the Qimage softproof to determine whether any more work need to be done to adjust the softproof layers in CS5.
I find the "Out Of Gamut" feature in CS5 useless, and I wish Adobe would be able to show the actual color changes for OOG colors as subtly as Qimage does.
Nevertheless, when I put up my fresh-off-the-press prints on the print viewer and compare them with the Qimage softproof view of the file, there are very seldom any unpleasant surprises.
Is softproof perfect? Nah. But it is an excellent ink-and-paper-saving tool!
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I saw the same blog that Andrew pointed to. I'm somewhat of a fence sitter. I've found for matte fine art papers, soft proofing is close to a necessity. With the two glossy papers I print on (Ilford Gold Fiber Silk and Museo Silver Rag) I find soft proofing less useful and only rarely do I need to make any changes from what I've done in Lightroom. Would it be more convenient to have softproofing in LR, yes; is it imperative, no.
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Just read Rob Sheppards latest Epson Printing book and he stresses that all the calibrating and profiling is fine and a very good starting point, but the only way to really get the final result you want is to print and do your modifications to the file untill your completely happy with the final result in your hands..
Of course Epson and everyone else sells more consumables that way ;)
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I almost always use the soft proof in photoshop for preparing to print.
That said, it doesn't really look like the print unless the soft proof makes very small changes to the display.
I think this is due to the paper black compensation raising the black level on the monitor so that the display looks muddy compared to the print.
It might be useful to have a slider control that allow lowering the paper black level while keeping the soft proof contrast ratio the same. I think that the deeper soft proof black will help make the soft proof resemble the print more closely to the eye.
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You can't soft proof "big" unfortunately.
A nine-image D3x vertical pano of the Superstion Mountains behind us looked great at 16" or so. Printed at about 36" it didn't look so hot. Pale, lack of contrast. Printed different sized variations for a week. Finally put the 16" version right up against the 36" version. Everywhere I compared the same spot on both images they were the same!
What freak of nature made them look different? Was it me? The paper? The light? The distance? Revenge against the state of Arizona?
No. If I was a real artist I'd have known the answer before the expensive and time-consuming tests. Simply stated, big things look lighter than small things. You have to account for that. How? I don't know, except to do test prints. But I have a 48" wide canvas-printed monument to my ignorance hanging in my office. I don't like it. I have offered it to painters to use as a base for their paintings so they could enhance it, but no takers yet.
Mike
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I always use soft proofing. But often find that the print needs something so I remake it. I figure the soft proof is something like the n-1 proof where n could be a large number (next to last proof) I used to make in the old chemical darkroom days.
I never really miss the print when I soft proof.
Les
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I’m kind of at a loss why some are so down on soft proofing, to the degree they go out of their way to not recommend it. See: http://lightroomkillertips.com/2011/did-you-know-lightroom-can-soft-proof/#comment-19510
I’ve seen it work quite well, but I’m not expecting 100% visual match but a far superior simulation than without. What’s your opinion?
Also, we seem to have two camps; those that demand such functionality in products like Lightroom, and those that find it doesn’t work in Photoshop. Just make a print or tweak the file. Unlike politics or religion which is opinion based, this stuff should work (or not work), why the two differing groups here? What do we need from the color management community and software vendors to make this effective? Why do so many users today know and desire to calibrate their displays, but find soft proofing if failing them?
I'm one of the people who aspire to seeing this functionality in Lightroom, because unlike Matt Kloskowski, for whom I have a great deal of respect, I would abhor a waste ratio of 50%. My waste ratio fluctuates well below 10% and I fully intend to keep it that way, if not reduce it further by any means I can to reduce "pilot error". So I export to Photoshop for final tweaks and printing. The fact is that it does work. As Alan says, for matte paper you can see it working in spades, while for Ilford Gold Fibre Silk you can see the difference being more subtle, but nonetheless present. Paper black is not as black as display black, paper white needs to be seen, and display white point needs to be roughly in line with viewing conditions otherwise the differences between what you see on display and what you see on paper will be palpable and the waste ratio goes up. It is science, it is mathematics and it does work. The soft end of it is in the mind of the user. There are very well known photographers printing on baryta or gloss papers who don't soft proof - they make their adjustments on the display with an innate sense bred of practice as to how the prints will look in their studio viewing environments, and the results are fine. There are others who have less confidence in themselves to make these mental adjustments, so they want the comfort of the soft-proof. A viable and reliable soft-proofing condition which gives predictability and reliability of outcomes is both economic and comforting. It's fine if there are people who disbelieve that - *chacun a son gout* - but they'll spend more time and money getting to where they want to be. Their choice, but if they are into photographic education they should be objectively informing their students about the options and their relative merits.
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Yes, I think soft-proofing works and is clearly the best option.
No, it's not perfect - but it's quite close. A big advance from earlier times.
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What’s your opinion?
Between Matt and Scott, I think they need to actually learn how to USE soft proofing before they can make a definitive statement of the value of using soft proofing...apparently neither one actually knows how to use the soft proofing function. I have a session at PSW Orlando which should help teach them how to use it. Maybe they will sit in on the session.
Look, if you want an accurate prediction of what an image WILL look like before printing, soft proofing is both useful and beneficial–if you know how to use it to help you finesse an image before ink hits paper. It's ok to make test prints...but if you can accurately predict what an image will look like, wouldn't you want to make use of that prediction? I would. It saves ink and paper!!!
It's not simply a matter of controlling the final rendering, it's a matter of picking the best rendering intent and improving the image before the final printed image.
The better you can predict the final image tone and color–with tone being arguably more important than color once you pick the best rendering intent–the better the final printed image. If that matters to you (it does to me) it behooves you to learn how to do it (soft proofing).
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IMHO those who don't find soft proofing useful are people who have never really learnt how to use soft proofing or understand what it is for. I meet numerous people who simply don't understand the computing tools they are using and prefer to find some make-shift means of making it work, regardless of how slow or wasteful it is. They simply don't have the aptitude or time to invest in learning faster, more efficient ways of handling their job, or they are not educated on more efficient means of doing the job.
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IMHO those who don't find soft proofing useful are people who have never really learnt how to use soft proofing or understand what it is for. I meet numerous people who simply don't understand the computing tools they are using and prefer to find some make-shift means of making it work, regardless of how slow or wasteful it is. They simply don't have the aptitude or time to invest in learning faster, more efficient ways of handling their job, or they are not educated on more efficient means of doing the job.
I don't share your opinion. IMHO, there are several cases where softproofing simply isn't representing the print on display enough.
The comment in this thread that scaling of the iamge isn't and can't be represented in the softproof is one issue.
Viewing light still is a compromise on the actual display conditions later on. The more with papers containing FBAs.
There is a huge difference between prints made of scenes no longer present in the digital darkroom and reproductions of art still present in the digital darkroom. Matching your/the photographer's memory, taste and imagination is something else than matching an existing original in the same viewing light. If soft proofing should work for reproduction photography then it has the complexity of making a metameric match twice (for all colors in the image!!!), first to the monitor, second to the print. It is a nice tool at most in conditions like that but to get there fast and correct prints/print crops at a 1:1 scale to the original are inevitable.
So it depends a lot in what trade of printing you are working in, which should temper opinions on what others experience and think.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Their choice, but if they are into photographic education they should be objectively informing their students about the options and their relative merits.
Yup, its this ‘agenda’ of criticizing soft proofing that makes comments from those who should know better heartrending. They say they calibrate their displays, then say they observe the dreaded “prints are too dark” syndrome (and recommend fixing this by altering the document). It makes you wonder how they can’t understand the disconnect here nor ask for help in fixing the issue.
None of us were born with innate understanding of Photoshop, imaging, photography. We learn it from others or through trial and error. I think Jeff’s suggestion of teaching Scott and Matt how to do this would really help their audience.
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I can't help thinking there's something else going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Highly intelligent people DO understand what soft-proofing does and have most likely used it, but still dismiss it. What better an example than the primary developer of Lightroom back then, because he thought it low priority or no priority, maybe still does, and here we are three versions later still waiting for it despite the countless repeated requests to Adobe from the professional imaging community to get it in there. Yes, there have been issues developing it because Lightroom data is not Photoshop data so it wasn't a matter of just importing an established algorithm, but I think the technical aspects have all been resolved. So what is it that makes those highly intelligent disbelievers carry-on disbelieving even though the science and logic of it is very clear? I think it has to do with the propensity we humans often have of throwing the baby out with the bath water. It ain't perfect under all conditions and circumstances so it's no good. You know, the perfect being the enemy of the good. We will never (well never say never) completely bridge the perceptual gap between transmitted and reflected light and probably not achieve on paper the maximum black of a display, so this technology will not be perfect as long as those conditions maintain, so in that circumstance what do we do: say it's no good? No we don't. We say it's MUCH better than the alternative of not using it, for all the good reasons we've discussed above. Sure Jeff, no harm encouraging Matt and Scott to sit in your session - but I think, behind the scenes, they should be encouraged to give their huge audiences the benefit of a balanced perspective on it.
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I can't help thinking there's something else going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Highly intelligent people DO understand what soft-proofing does and have most likely used it, but still dismiss it.
They understand they need to calibrate their displays too. But some haven’t put the concept that how you set your calibration targets affect the prints are too dark issues or the lack of successful soft proofing. If you go back enough years, the lack of acceptance that one needs to calibration their display was high. Plus that required an expenditure of money. Soft proofing in Photoshop is free. This seems to be an educational issue, hence my confusion about why the educators are not making the connections.
What better an example than the primary developer of Lightroom back then, because he thought it low priority or no priority, maybe still does, and here we are three versions later still waiting for it despite the countless repeated requests to Adobe from the professional imaging community to get it in there
Well based on knowing a bit about the bkgnd here, the lack of soft proofing wasn’t due to a lack of acceptance of soft proofing being an effective tool. The reason we don’t yet have soft proofing in LR is due to far more complex issues. And I don’t believe we want LR to mimic the soft proofing we have in Photoshop which hasn’t seen much technological progress since 1998 but rather for the team to raise the bar several notches. Also, unlike Photoshop, if you have the soft proof in effect, and you want to edit the image, how do you effectively do this in a metadata editor? In Develop? In Print? Are these output specific edits kept separate from the non output specific edits? In Photoshop, you can build adjustment layers, then layer sets which allow you to name and control when such output specific edits are visible and applied. What provisions do we have in LR to do this and what would the ramifications be if you had a master with 6 different output device sets of edits? Do this with Virtual copies? IOW, there’s a lot more work in LR than just turning on a soft proof, picking a profile and a rendering intent.
While using Photoshop to round trip soft proofing/editing and printing in Photoshop is a bit of a kludge, it works for the time being.
We say it's MUCH better than the alternative of not using it, for all the good reasons we've discussed above. Sure Jeff, no harm encouraging Matt and Scott to sit in your session - but I think, behind the scenes, they should be encouraged to give their huge audiences the benefit of a balanced perspective on it.
Agreed on both counts. What will be interesting is the reactions of these two students. Right now, the conversations from them go something like this: We know it is useful for some users, its not useful for us, do whatever works best for you. What I find interesting is what appears to be a their lack of curiosity as to why so many vocal users praise soft proofing yet still dismissing it because its easier to make multiple prints. Or correctly calibrating their displays and correctly setting up the soft proof. Its like someone in the high end of Photoshop educational business saying “I don’t use the pen tool, its too complicated and doesn’t work for me, the lasso tool does, therefore, if you want info on using the pen tool, go elsewhere”. They’d be off the hook to some degree if they pointed to another expert educator who could provide information about the pen tool. In this case, the message is, soft proofing doesn’t work for us, if you like it great. If not, here’s the kludge to move forward. I find that attitude troubling.
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Well based on knowing a bit about the bkgnd here, the lack of soft proofing wasn’t due to a lack of acceptance of soft proofing being an effective tool. The reason we don’t yet have soft proofing in LR is due to far more complex issues. And I don’t believe we want LR to mimic the soft proofing we have in Photoshop which hasn’t seen much technological progress since 1998 but rather for the team to raise the bar several notches. Also, unlike Photoshop, if you have the soft proof in effect, and you want to edit the image, how do you effectively do this in a metadata editor? In Develop? In Print? Are these output specific edits kept separate from the non output specific edits? In Photoshop, you can build adjustment layers, then layer sets which allow you to name and control when such output specific edits are visible and applied. What provisions do we have in LR to do this and what would the ramifications be if you had a master with 6 different output device sets of edits? Do this with Virtual copies? IOW, there’s a lot more work in LR than just turning on a soft proof, picking a profile and a rendering intent.
While using Photoshop to round trip soft proofing/editing and printing in Photoshop is a bit of a kludge, it works for the time being.
Real good point and something that had not occurred to me. If one is only going to use one particular paper then a LR softproof tool is somewhat easier to deal with but as Andrew notes, what if you are doing multiple different sets of edits? One would have to be very careful with virtual copies making sure that one had the right one open and didn't mistakenly modify it thinking it was something else.
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Well based on knowing a bit about the bkgnd here, the lack of soft proofing wasn’t due to a lack of acceptance of soft proofing being an effective tool. The reason we don’t yet have soft proofing in LR is due to far more complex issues. And I don’t believe we want LR to mimic the soft proofing we have in Photoshop which hasn’t seen much technological progress since 1998 but rather for the team to raise the bar several notches. Also, unlike Photoshop, if you have the soft proof in effect, and you want to edit the image, how do you effectively do this in a metadata editor? In Develop? In Print? Are these output specific edits kept separate from the non output specific edits? In Photoshop, you can build adjustment layers, then layer sets which allow you to name and control when such output specific edits are visible and applied. What provisions do we have in LR to do this and what would the ramifications be if you had a master with 6 different output device sets of edits? Do this with Virtual copies? IOW, there’s a lot more work in LR than just turning on a soft proof, picking a profile and a rendering intent.
While using Photoshop to round trip soft proofing/editing and printing in Photoshop is a bit of a kludge, it works for the time being.
Andrew, what I've heard - from usually reliable sources - is that the technical issues of creating the softproofing conditions have been resolved quite some ago, and what remained was interface design, perhaps to deal with the questions you are raising here. Of course, to remain faithful to the concepts of non-destructive and reversible editing which are at the foundation of Lightroom's philosophy, they would be designing the interface so that whatever softproof condition a user posits today for today's purposes, can be discarded or amended for tomorrow's purposes. I have no doubt this would/will be part of the design when it gets published. I could see them placing it independently in the Web module, the Print Module, or giving it a new Module of its own. My understanding is that by now the development of this functionality is beyond whether it can be done, but in making and implementing some design decisions for the interface.
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I use it, and I find it useful. Today's fiber-gloss/baryta papers are so good that for a lot of image types you can probably get away without soft-proofing, depending on how critical you are. But for matte papers it's essential to getting a good print. There's just too much gamut/tonal compression going on for most images when you output them to a paper that at best has a tonal range of L*=17-96 or thereabouts.
I think people who downplay its usefulness have unrealistic expectations. IMHO, soft-proofing does not do a good job of simulating what the final print will look like - not for matte prints, anyway. When I say that, I mean that what you see on screen (especially if you use the options to simulate black-ink/paper white), tends to look worse than the final print. I think this is because our perception of contrast is different when looking at a display compared to a print. And so when people expect the soft proof to look like the print, they're disappointed.
But the real usefulness of soft-proofing is to identify problem areas, since it can indicate where things like loss of detail, gamut clipping etc are going to occur. Identifying those problems is where soft-proof shines. It's just a matter of learning what the soft-proof can show you and how you can use that information to improve the final print.
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Another thought. There is the idea of soft proofing to view the image and print in terms of seeing a better match. Or using soft proofing to edit the image to make it look more like the original (without soft proofing). But just picking a rendering intent choice requires soft proofing. How does Matt and Scott and others select the rendering intent for printing? Or do they always use the same intent, no matter the image, profile creator (which can be quite different in terms of how a perceptual intent is built), even BPC?
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I can't help thinking there's something else going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Mark do you think you could put your finger on the return key a little more often ?
For all you have to share your posts are dreadfully hard to read when they're one huge paragraph.
It would sure be appreciated.
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I would like to second Mark's comments. For those of use who print our own images, soft proofing provide that extra percent of possible excellence to make our prints shine. While I am a big supporter of what Matt and Scott teach, I think they are misguided with respect to soft proofing. It is a procedure that allows us to improve what we print and as Vincent Versace states, "the print is all". It is how we convey what our mind sees and our heart feels.
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Mark do you think you could put your finger on the return key a little more often ?
For all you have to share your posts are dreadfully hard to read when they're one huge paragraph.
It would sure be appreciated.
Ya - as I look them over i see you have a point! Usually I'm attentive to this kind of stuff, but I've been up to my eyeballs lately, so speeding stuff off. I'll keep it mind - best to have happy comfortable readers!
Cheers,
Mark
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I don't share your opinion. IMHO, there are several cases where softproofing simply isn't representing the print on display enough. Viewing light still is a compromise on the actual display conditions later on. The more with papers containing FBAs.
Well, I would say this is where tools for soft-proofing would need to be improved so that one could accurately assess the light source that would be used where the print is being displayed as well as assess the media that the print would be printed on to compensate for FWA's. For example, I recall reading about some restaurant that used very dim/unusual lighting and requested prints be made to compensate for this, apparently they looked ghastly under most light sources however in the restaurant they were normal. If say, soft proofing could let me choose lighting conditions as well as print profile ICC's that would be quite useful in some situations.
For example, Canon now provides Ambient Light Correction which can assist in compensating for some light sources (which I'll admit I haven't used before), ProfileMaker can create specific profiles for measured light sources, so it's up to the person doing the work to best utilise their tools to cut down on trial and error to make things work properly. Sure, there's nothing stopping you using whatever workflow you like, however if you can use a tool to cut down on trial and error then it's most likely worth using it.
There's a big difference between recognising when to (or not to) use a particular tool vs writing off other tools simply as you don't have time to test and evaluate them properly.
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I'm not a professional photographer but photography / photoshop is part of my work.
I use a 4 year old 20" Apple Cinema Display calibrated with a DTP 94 puck using ColorEyes Display Pro. My viewing light is an Ott - Lite which I measure using the puck. I print using a 6 year old four color Canon A4 consumer level printer ( using Canon paper profiles profiles ). Not exactly a high end pro set up but I find soft proofing indispensible. I'm not saying that it's 100% accurate but it spares me some nasty & expensive surprises. Most of the images I print are of stained glass or designs for stained glass which very often contain very strong blues ( r53 g0 b171 ). These will print as a disgusting pinky purple. With soft proofing I can predict this and use adjustment layers to tweak these colors into a slightly less disgusting greeny blue.
Rendering Intent can make a serious difference.
BTW I have also had stuff printed for me on an big Epson ( a 9000 and something ) for which I was supplied with a profile. The soft proofing worked well in this case too.
Soft proofing - not perfect but much better than the alternative.
It's not too difficult to understand either - Jeff Schewe explains it pretty clearly in 'From camera to Print' and also http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_reproprep.pdf
And I'm not a super intelligent or highly educated person.
Regards
Graeme
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Andrew, to address your question about print-specific edits and different versions for different media, the 'Snapshot' function of LR should keep track of those fairly handily. Finish editing, create a Snapshot. Softproof, adjust, create a Snapshot. Printing on another surface, go back to the original Snapshot, proof, adjust, create a new Snapshot. It seems that this would be a good use of that function within LR.
The biggest issue, it seems, with the currently available plug in is that it only allows you to make adjustments in Quick Develop rather than in the full Develop module so the full functionality that might be required to adjust the proof isn't available...... yet.
As far as Kloskowski's comments regarding the advisability of soft proofing, I put him in the same camp as Ken Rockwell. Mildly amusing but not overly informative.
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Like some of the previous comments I find soft proofing lacking sometimes, especially with respect to the appearance of blacks and shadow areas.
I'll always use it for critical prints or ones with unusual colour ranges that might have OOG issues, but mostly I have a pretty good understanding of what I'll get out and don't have disappointments too often.
This discussion also highlights the problems the LR team have in implementing SP, but given their track record so far I'm confident that they'll eventually deliver us a good usable solution.
As far as Kloskowski's comments regarding the advisability of soft proofing, I put him in the same camp as Ken Rockwell. Mildly amusing but not overly informative.
Quite, his comment to Andrew's posting saying "I have a nice bright monitor to look at too, that’s set to 100% brightness like the rest of the world. You’d be amazed at how great these things look when you turn the brightness all the way up " removed any remaining credibility.
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Quite, his comment to Andrew's posting saying "I have a nice bright monitor to look at too, that’s set to 100% brightness like the rest of the world. You’d be amazed at how great these things look when you turn the brightness all the way up " removed any remaining credibility.
Well, no credibility on this issue, but don't write him off - he's a very adept Photoshop guru in many other ways, which makes me wonder why the intellectual vacuum on soft-proofing.
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Quite, his comment to Andrew's posting saying "I have a nice bright monitor to look at too, that’s set to 100% brightness like the rest of the world. You’d be amazed at how great these things look when you turn the brightness all the way up " removed any remaining credibility.
That WAS an interesting comment! I totally agree with your point about this being a credibility issue. Notice his recent reply to Jeff. Looking over this, it appears that indeed, Matt knows how to use soft proofing. There’s no question someone of his stature knows how to invoke and set up the options in the dialog. What I think he’s totally missing is how to properly calibrate his display. I’m not sure why he even does this based on how he is handling this process. You pointed out that he drives his display at 100%. He admits that his prints are too dark (darker) than the display as described in another of his blog posts (http://lightroomkillertips.com/2010/video-the-trick-to-getting-brigher-prints). He suggests to his audience they apply a LR preset to lighten up the images. So considering his display is set to 100%, that he has prints that don’t match without soft proofing, seems quite logical that WITH soft proofing, he’s not getting a match! He suggests that soft proofing can’t fix the too dark prints when the issue is clearly one of calibration. The connection between how he calibrates his display and the results he gets apparently hasn’t crossed his mind (despite in both blog posts, I’ve tried to have him focus on this disconnect)!
So at this point, I suspect he’s set in his ways, isn’t interested in examining the odd method he uses to drive his display at 100% and all the issues its producing. He thinks the rest of the world drives their displays at 100% which is a stretch. He thinks that is necessary to use the display outside of imaging work or surfing the web or watching video’s suffer. I believe Matt knows how to setup a soft proof. I do believe Matt needs help in calibrating his display. I believe Matt has no desire or will examine this, he’s more interested in being “right”. That’s a shame. I’ve told him I’d be happy to help him, I’ll be ignored as I’ve been in the past.
Short of maybe posting the URL of this discussion and the on-going results of the poll, my involvement in posting to his blog seems pointless and only guaranteed to piss him off, which isn’t my goal. I’d far prefer to show him how to properly handle display calibration and show him the benefits of soft proofing even if the current implementation could use improvements. Then he could further help his “audience” (his term).
FWIW, he says he’s sat in on my presentations about this topic, I don’t ever recall covering the specifics of setting a display calibration target values for NAPP (I haven’t spoken for them in over 2 years, I doubt they will ever ask me to again). I’d be happy to bring in a display, print viewing booth and demonstrate in real time how to do this properly, either for Matt or a NAPP audience. That is unlikely to ever happen because again, I get the idea that sticking to your concept that whatever works for ‘you’, despite the technology and tools available is the bottom line.
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Well, no credibility on this issue, but don't write him off - he's a very adept Photoshop guru in many other ways, which makes me wonder why the intellectual vacuum on soft-proofing.
I’m ONLY writing him off in terms of color management and his unwillingness to examine common logic surrounding color management. I’ve learned a ton about LR from him. That’s what makes his attitude in this context so difficult to swallow.
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While I always soft proof, I have to say that I'm sometimes left feeling like it hasn't helped completely.
Knowing rendering intent and the process of how you adjust the image makes alot of difference but quite often I find that soft proofing doesn't go "all the way" to show how it will really look due to the inherent differences processes of screen and print. ie backlit or reflective. I don't always get an exact reference which is my goal, and it should be a realistic one. With time I'm getting to learn how different outputs will look though and I will factor that into my equation but unfortunately to some degree there remains some guess work at least for me.
Sometimes for me I question though that some outputs have been tampered with by the clients graphics department or the times printers have asked for files in RGB A98 and then a problem arises in rip or profiling/conversion. I do insist that I do the profiling myself as at least I know it's going to be done properly, or if not then it's my fault, but some printers I think have the same ethos!
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I’m ONLY writing him off in terms of color management and his unwillingness to examine common logic surrounding color management. I’ve learned a ton about LR from him. That’s what makes his attitude in this context so difficult to swallow.
Yes - I understand where you were coming from. I was responding to Rhossydd who seemed to be making a more generalized comment.
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While I always soft proof, I have to say that I'm sometimes left feeling like it hasn't helped completely.
Knowing rendering intent and the process of how you adjust the image makes alot of difference but quite often I find that soft proofing doesn't go "all the way" to show how it will really look due to the inherent differences processes of screen and print. ie backlit or reflective. I don't always get an exact reference which is my goal, and it should be a realistic one. With time I'm getting to learn how different outputs will look though and I will factor that into my equation but unfortunately to some degree there remains some guess work at least for me.
Yes, there is an inherent difference between reflected and transmitted light which soft-proofing cannot yet bridge with 100% accuracy. But again, the perfect can be the enemy of the good when you can't attain perfection. The relevant issue is whether you are better off with SP or without it, and from all my experience there is no doubt about the answer. I'll always chose what's better, perfect or not.
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Yes - I understand where you were coming from. I was responding to Rhossydd who seemed to be making a more generalized comment.
Well I think had he added “to this subject” at the end of the sentence (Quite, his comment to Andrew's posting saying "I have a nice bright monitor to look at too, that’s set to 100% brightness like the rest of the world. You’d be amazed at how great these things look when you turn the brightness all the way up " removed any remaining credibility.) it would not have been read by some as a generalized comment. FWIW, I didn’t read it as a generalized comment. When you consider that anyone who drives any modern LCD at 100% brightness, then suggests most people are doing this is out of touch. I mean really, who do you know running an (presumably) LCD at 250-300cd/m2 and then thinks that useful?
While I always soft proof, I have to say that I'm sometimes left feeling like it hasn't helped completely.
Its far from perfect and there are some things that could make it much better (the UI surround for one). But the suggestion that not soft proofing is a better solution than the imperfect soft proof, while at the same time describing prints that are far darker than the display highly suggests that the calibration process of the equation needs serious examination before dismissing the tools. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!
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I would always softproof if only to get a reference. I do feel that I've learned a bit in the time I've been doing it, and I know how I need to compensate for a couple particular outputs. But there's always some colours that get me. It's always adequate for now but i do wish it was more reliable.
Funnily enough though, to put in perspective, the majority of my work is printed in magazines and it looks different in every room or even every corner of my rooms in my house with it's different lighting conditions.
I like to push things around with colour and I would never send anything out without softproofing it and checking for out of gamut colours. And Mark I agree, while it's not going to be perfect it's the best option I have and the chances of my clients being happy with it are greatly increased.
Can't for the life of me understand why you wouldn't when it's there on offer.
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The issue that bothers me is that soft proofing clearly is available and is an improvement yet Matt and Scott seem to just dismiss it out of hand. Their arguments as to why they do not use it ring hollow. Having a monitor that runs at 250 cd is not a valid reason NOT to avail to yourself to the improvement that soft proofing provides in printing.
Just my two cents.
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Maybe they don't want to teach it and have to field questions about it? Not sure the subject matter fits in the teaching style of their seminars.
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Maybe they don't want to teach it and have to field questions about it? Not sure the subject matter fits in the teaching style of their seminars.
That could well be true. The soft proofing process doesn't exactly fit into Kelby's formulaic 'perform these steps in this order to get that result' method of instruction.
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Maybe they don't want to teach it and have to field questions about it? Not sure the subject matter fits in the teaching style of their seminars.
If so, why even mention that ‘it doesn’t work’? Best to say nothing.
It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln
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Matt Kloskowski has never come across to me (at least from what I have seen and heard on the 'web) as being other than quite well informed about his subject(s) and pleasant with it to boot, so his comments, as reported, concerning soft proofing are really surprising and somewhat disappointing.
I wonder if Matt could be invited to join this discussion and amplify his point-of-view. Whilst conversations here can be er, robust :) I am sure people would give him a fair hearing...
Anthony.
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Matt Kloskowski has never come across to me (at least from what I have seen and heard on the 'web) as being other than quite well informed about his subject(s) and pleasant with it to boot...
That’s been my impression as well. It makes this behavior seem even more at odds.
I told him I’d be happy to meet with him when I’m in Florida next month but he has not replied.
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If so, why even mention that ‘it doesn’t work’? Best to say nothing.
It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln
Good point.
I don't know how big their audience is, but I wonder if it would be a positive influence on the market for color management hardware and software if they got that audience on board?
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If so, why even mention that ‘it doesn’t work’? Best to say nothing.
It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln
This is a classic!
And sometimes by saying nothing, the audience thinks you are super deep and smart!
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I don't know how big their audience is
Pretty huge, something like 70,000 members world wide.
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Pretty huge, something like 70,000 members world wide.
And dare I say, that may be the "problem". They may have become enamored with their place in the cult. I do NOT deny their knowledge in their relm. But his (Matt) dismissal of the "benefits" of SP in light of the comments by authorities in the field, DigitalDog and to a lesser degree Jeff ;), confirms their fluff and not substance on the subject. IMHO!
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...in light of the comments by authorities in the field, DigitalDog and to a lesser degree Jeff
To a lesser degree me? Really?
Where do you think Andrew learns this stuff? (and if you said Bruce Fraser, you would be right).
:~)
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Andrew, this is a great topic you started. I have not read all the reply posts (hard to with a 4 year old asking you questions about EVERYTHING). I will state my experience with the topic.
I am in pre-press and do catalog work for one of the largest retailers in north america and I use soft proofing every day on every image (I am a retoucher not a photographer). For soft proofing to work right everything in your workflow must be calibrated to the proper specs. Even with all aspects of your colour managed workflow on the same page it is not 100% accurate but it is very, very close. You can only get so close with the "perceived" brightness coming from the display and a print. I agree that with Matt and Scott, there displays might be set to bright for the conditions they are viewing the proof in. I think it is very difficult for people to grasp all the colour management stuff only because there are many "experts" who, A) are not very knowledgable and B) Who seem to disagree (or just not totally agree) on many topics of colour management. My journey to learn colour management has taken many years. I have read books by Bruce Frazer, Dan Margulis and others. Over the years there have been times when I have been confused because my own personal testing is not the same as what these experts have said. When this happens I do not think that I am smarter or have figured out something they have not, my first thought is how is my logic flawed. Sometimes it has taken me a while to figure out, but in the end the more you understand about each piece of the puzzle the clearer it all becomes.
Carey
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The new profiles for imageprint 8 load real easily into PS using the profile manager. I have started using SP as a result and find it is one more useful step in the workflow and one more place to catch a problem. I still make a test print and so on but I cannot see why not use SP. I find it to be surprisingly accurate and easy to use. What am I missing in this? Why would this step not be useful?
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What am I missing in this? Why would this step not be useful?
Oh, it's useful if the following conditions are true;
You have a profession quality display that is properly calibrated and profiled,
You have an accurate printer profile,
You are printing to a pro quality printer,
You are using a "large gamut" working space (Adobe RGB minimum and ideally ProPhoto RGB),
You know how to use soft proofing and understand what it's showing you and,
You know how to correct the soft proofed image so the final print is optimized for both color and tone,
And the final print is viewed under consistent viewing conditions that are in-line (a match) to the display properties.
Soft proofing won't work very well if you;
Are using a laptop display,
Using a cheap "smaller than sRGB" display,
Driving the display at 100% brightness and/or at an uncontrolled luminance and/or contrast range (anything above 500/1 is SciFi)...
Don't know how to use Photoshop's soft proofing–including the Display Options (On-Screen) options...
Don't have a standard viewing environment so you have some ideal and consistent print viewing capability.
Look, all I can say is that for serious prints I make (and I'm a pretty darn good printer) soft proofing is the BEST way to get an image optimized prior to making that first test print (why waste ink & paper if you don't need to?).
Yes, sometimes I'll look at the actual print and decide to go back and make an additional tweak to perfect the final print. Most of the time, I really don't need to make a test print because the soft proofed image gives me the info I need to get an optimal print the first time out of the printer.
The ONLY time soft proofing fails (to my mind) is predicting the image detail on screen.
While Photoshop is capable of accurately displaying tone and color, it's kinda sucks at predicting the image detail (sharpening and noise reduction) you expect to see in the final print.
That's not a limitation of Photoshop so much as a limitation in the resolution of today's displays. When you can get a 30" that has the same resolution of an iPhone 4 retina display (over 200PPI) then you might be able to predict sharpening and noise reduction for the print. Today? Not so much...you either need experience or a test print to tell you the detail the image is capable of producing...
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Oh, it's useful if the following conditions are true;
You have a profession quality display that is properly calibrated and profiled,
You have an accurate printer profile,
You are printing to a pro quality printer,
You are using a "large gamut" working space (Adobe RGB minimum and ideally ProPhoto RGB),
You know how to use soft proofing and understand what it's showing you and,
You know how to correct the soft proofed image so the final print is optimized for both color and tone,
And the final print is viewed under consistent viewing conditions that are in-line (a match) to the display properties.
Soft proofing won't work very well if you;
Are using a laptop display,
Using a cheap "smaller than sRGB" display,
Driving the display at 100% brightness and/or at an uncontrolled luminance and/or contrast range (anything above 500/1 is SciFi)...
Don't know how to use Photoshop's soft proofing–including the Display Options (On-Screen) options...
Don't have a standard viewing environment so you have some ideal and consistent print viewing capability.
Look, all I can say is that for serious prints I make (and I'm a pretty darn good printer) soft proofing is the BEST way to get an image optimized prior to making that first test print (why waste ink & paper if you don't need to?).
Yes, sometimes I'll look at the actual print and decide to go back and make an additional tweak to perfect the final print. Most of the time, I really don't need to make a test print because the soft proofed image gives me the info I need to get an optimal print the first time out of the printer.
The ONLY time soft proofing fails (to my mind) is predicting the image detail on screen.
While Photoshop is capable of accurately displaying tone and color, it's kinda sucks at predicting the image detail (sharpening and noise reduction) you expect to see in the final print.
That's not a limitation of Photoshop so much as a limitation in the resolution of today's displays. When you can get a 30" that has the same resolution of an iPhone 4 retina display (over 200PPI) then you might be able to predict sharpening and noise reduction for the print. Today? Not so much...you either need experience or a test print to tell you the detail the image is capable of producing...
Without unnecessarily repeating the above (although it deserves repeating. Hence the 'quote'); And, at the risk of sounding like a fan boy ::) +1 to what Jeff said. ;D
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Oh, it's useful if the following conditions are true;
Excellent summary of the necessary conditions and limitations. You should send this to NAPP - better still - why not offer to do them an article on softproofing for PhotoshupUser magazine? :-)
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You should send this to NAPP - better still - why not offer to do them an article on softproofing for PhotoshupUser magazine? :-)
You think that will help? Change starts at the top. So will a Schewe article will anything to change the perceptions and ‘advise’ of Scott and Matt, will they then be soft proofing proponents or deniers?
There is a very interesting odd behavior here. We have proponents of soft proofing sure. We have users who say it doesn’t work for them so they don’t use it. Why it doesn’t work for them but does for others is something you’d think they would ask themselves but generally speaking, they find it doesn’t work and they move on. OK, that’s one thing. But then there is this odd third group of highly visible educators who appear to go out of their way to dismiss soft proofing. Read Matt’s blog. It starts out with useful information about this new LR soft proof plug-in. It didn’t need to go farther yet like the original piece he did on the issue of Prints too dark, there’s a discussion of how soft proofing isn’t useful to him (and a the usual round of comments agreeing about this). Now, I know this will probably start a religious battle, but personally the soft proofing feature does nothing “for me” (key words here: “for me”). Why this slant?
When asked about how he calibrates his display, or why soft proofing is effective to so many and why it might not work for him, or why he’d drive his display at 100% brightness the answer is “I’m good, I know how to soft proof”.
There’s a Epson training Video for sale on Kelby Training where I’m told, Scott tells the guest (Dano from Epson) something along the lines that he doesn’t use soft proofing. I haven’t seen it, but there were some posts on the NAPP forums about it, some from shocked members who did see the video. Why the comments dismissing this technology that’s been used by many since 1998?
These people presumably calibrate their displays. I wonder why? Well they expect some resemblance of what they see on-screen and elsewhere, and they want visual consistency I suspect. So why when the setup a soft proof do they find a mismatch? Or what about the people who say “without soft proofing, my screen matches my prints”. So the differences in gamut, paper white, contrast ratio, rendering intent when applied don’t work, but when viewing an output agnostic working space it does? Something seems odd here. Unfortunately some are so defensive of their workflow, that when you ask them about the disconnect, when you try to get the soft proofing to work for them, the clamp up. This isn’t an ideological opinion with differing points of view, its a technology that should work or not work. Its not a religious battle, why bring that up?
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I'll go back to what I'd mentioned earlier, Andrew.
Soft proofing doesn't necessarily fit the 'Kelby Method' of teaching. I haven't bought any of his DVDs but have been a NAAP member in the past, seen some of the online tutorials and subscribed to PS User and the instructional method used is the same as in Scott's books. It's very regimented, 'do steps 1 through 10 and get result A'. There's really no room for 'freewheeling' in the instructional method he and his associates use. Soft proofing doesn't work that way. There is no, 'do steps 1 through 10 and your prints will match your screen beautifully'. Soft proofing is a more 'loose' methodology. Sure, setting up the dupe and original images side by side, proofing with the proper profile, choosing the rendering intent, BPC, Paper White, are easily conveyed in a step-by-step, but beyond that, not so much. There's no 'Adjust Saturation by +10' or 'Move Highlights to 248 and Shadows to 8 in Levels'. Every image/print is different and the Kelby Method doesn't account for that.
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There is no, 'do steps 1 through 10 and your prints will match your screen beautifully'. Soft proofing is a more 'loose' methodology.
IMHO, a large degree of blame should be placed on those who create color management solutions. Asking most users to set a target luminance in cd/m2 is about as intuitive as asking them to preform low level programming. User are being asked the wrong questions, the wrong way. The methodology can be greatly improved.
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I'll go back to what I'd mentioned earlier, Andrew.
Soft proofing doesn't necessarily fit the 'Kelby Method' of teaching.
I'm not sure color management fits into the NAPP philosophy. Matt's tutorial on how to get the correct density from your lab by printing out a series of tests at various densities shows they would rather give you a specific "do this to get this approach" than teach the concepts and steps for a correct workflow. Interestingly enough, Photoshop World has even moved that way ... many of the instructors who I respect the most are no longer involved, and those that remain might offer some nice tidbits on speeding workflow but nothing more.
As far as Matt's credibility, at this point I'm not sure he does get it. He's entertaining, and certainly knows his way around photoshop and lightroom better than I do and offers a nice teaching style and some useful tips. But sitting in one of his sessions at last year's photoshop world he stated emphatically that everyone should use ProPhotorgb as their working space, but not to bother with 16 bits because it just makes your files twice as big.
As far as my use of soft proofing, like some others have mentioned, I find my monitor matches EEF very well, so most of the time I'm use soft proofing mainly to evaluate which rendering intent to use.
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One of the real problems in this field (and it's not alone of course) is that people can do various things to get themselves acknowledged as "experts", and indeed, in some respects they may well be - but here's the rub - not in everything. Digital imaging is a pretty vast enterprise; there's lots of stuff to learn and know about. But some of the "experts" have the chutzpa to advise on matters they either don't fully understand, or haven't tested properly for themselves, or both. Worse than that, if a technology with merit doesn't fit within a recipe, better dismiss the technology rather than amend the recipe, because behind the recipe there is economy of effort, enhanced productivity pumping out instructional materials and cash flow.
NAPP is arguably the world's largest Photoshop instructional enterprise going; as such it has a serious responsibility to carefully verify the merits of the things its staff encourages or discourages before going public. If it fails to do that, its credibility will suffer and it will lose support. I've never paid any attention - until Andrew raised it - what those guys think of soft-proofing, and I find what's being revealed here quite appalling from the broader educational perspective; then on top of that to hear one of thinks it's fine to use 8-bit files in ProPhoto RGB raises yet more concern, because the risk of wrecking image quality from doing that is arguably worse than from failing to soft-proof.
I must say, with regret, this kind of stuff reminds me of previous episodes of "over-reached expertise": you may recall that well-known NAPP Hall of Famer who at various times issued brain-dead propositions to the effect that a monkey could calibrate his display, there's no need to work in anything other than 8-bit sRGB, colour management is dead, Adobe Camera Raw is primitive because it doesn't have curves for each of the individual primaries, an so on...........
It's good to see others around who are vigilant and trying to keep the standards up. Thanks Andrew and Jeff. But being the free-wheeling market it is for ideas and education, "caveat emptor" applies here like it does for so many other things. People should "take advice on advisement" and test these propositions for themselves, to see what they should believe or not believe. It's work, but there's no substitute for first-hand discovery of what works best for each of us.
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Scott's latest book, CS 5 for Digital Photographers has a section on how to soft proof, but starts off with a statment on how he does not use or advocate the use of soft proofing. I myself find it extreamly usefull when making prints.
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That may be true, Andrew. Tough to set a target when you don't know what the target should be. Then again, many tutorials suggest leaving the display brightness at factory default (usually Max) or using a visual approach to display brightness. So are the tutorials chasing the software or is the software chasing the tutorials?
If
Then
Else
Wayne, you're right. I should have said colour management not just soft proofing.
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Interestingly enough, Photoshop World has even moved that way ... many of the instructors who I respect the most are no longer involved, and those that remain might offer some nice tidbits on speeding workflow but nothing more.
Well, I'm still hanging on. If you went to PSW Vegas last year, I wasn't there because of a conflict between PSW and PODUS Iceland. First one I've missed in a while...but I'm back at PSW Orlando (although I hate Orlando more than Vegas) and will be doing two printing sessions; Printing in Lightroom (and of course soft proofing in Photoshop) and The Art of the Perfect Print which is all about taking a raw image and perfecting it for the final print. Soft proofing is of course involved...also doing Real World Image Sharpening too. So at least there will be one person there who knows how to print :~) Actually JP Caponigro is there too but he's not doing a printing session...
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That may be true, Andrew. Tough to set a target when you don't know what the target should be. Then again, many tutorials suggest leaving the display brightness at factory default (usually Max) or using a visual approach to display brightness. So are the tutorials chasing the software or is the software chasing the tutorials?
Andrew explains very clearly what the target should be in his tutorial on "Why Are My Prints Too Dark" on this website. All those tutorials recommending to leave display brightness at factory default - AT LEAST in that respect - aren't worth the silicon they consume. Needless to say here, factory defaults are sweet for playing video games.
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Needless to say here, factory defaults are sweet for playing video games.
A decent wager could be made and won by betting more computers are used for playing video games than for doing digital photography. I know when I was shopping for a new computer last year (PC of course :D) that by picking a computer that was designed for video games would give me all the computational power and video that I would need for LR and PS. Got it from a company that specializes in gaming computers. Funny thing is that I've yet to play a video game on it!
I found it also interesting to read the comments section on Matt's blog. Other than Jeff and Andrew about two other people said they soft proof prior to printing; the remainder were a Greek chorus echoing Matt's point of view. If Matt likes a bright monitor he can get a NEC SpectraView monitor and have one setting for all the mundane stuff and a critical setting for the photo work. I can't believe that he in all honesty can say that he runs his computer at max brightness and gets a print to match first time (or even second time) through.
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Something else to consider, is that most occupational health and safety guidelines recommend turning DOWN monitors to a "comfortable" level. It's hard on the eyes to spend a day looking a very bright object, even more so when it's as close as a monitor (compared, say, to a TV or projector screen).
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......and perfecting it for the final print.
And therein is the rub. You work for the final print. I suggest they (Matt & Co.) work for the screen, and thus never have to concern themselves with such a mundane thing as Soft Proofing!
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And therein is the rub. You work for the final print. I suggest they (Matt & Co.) work for the screen, and thus never have to concern themselves with such a mundane thing as Soft Proofing!
That doesn't get them off the hook, because they are instructors and if they are teaching people how to print they need to do so correctly.
Now, the best thing really, instead of us wondering what they're about on this, is for them to come onto this Forum and explain themselves.
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Mark - I did not offer the comment to get them off the hook. I meant it more as an indictment of Matt's attitude towards SP (and by extension Andrew and Jeff). If you expect them to leave the cozy forum over at Kelby training for the serious discussions that take place here at LuLa.......how long can you tread water?
And if you want a real head turner, check out the invite to their latest "all" things Lightroom seminar-
http://lightroomkillertips.com/
It’s All About the Print!
4:00 to 5:00 P.M.
The printing features of Lightroom make it arguably the best program for printing photographic images ever. And with the new custom layout feature in Lightroom 3, you now have total control over printing one or several photos to a page. In class, you’ll learn exactly how to set up your system for printing success, and automate the whole process, so you can just sit back, print, and get predictable results that look exactly the way you wanted them to. We’ll cover everything from setting up Lightroom’s color management to configuring the print settings so you’ll get quick, reliable results, while side-stepping some common printing problems. We wrap up the day by bringing it all together by showing you the full beginning-to-end process; you’ll see it all, from taking the images into Lightroom, sorting, process, proofing, and even outputting the print right in class. Seeing this real world workflow come together live in class really “makes it stick” and brings it all together to make this incredible day of learning a career-changing experience.
Notice the part on SP??????
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Mark - I did not offer the comment to get them off the hook. I meant it more as an indictment of Matt's attitude towards SP (and by extension Andrew and Jeff). If you expect them to leave the cozy forum over at Kelby training for the serious discussions that take place here at LuLa.......how long can you tread water?
And if you want a real head turner, check out the invite to their latest "all" things Lightroom seminar-
http://lightroomkillertips.com/
It’s All About the Print!
4:00 to 5:00 P.M.
The printing features of Lightroom make it arguably the best program for printing photographic images ever. And with the new custom layout feature in Lightroom 3, you now have total control over printing one or several photos to a page. In class, you’ll learn exactly how to set up your system for printing success, and automate the whole process, so you can just sit back, print, and get predictable results that look exactly the way you wanted them to. We’ll cover everything from setting up Lightroom’s color management to configuring the print settings so you’ll get quick, reliable results, while side-stepping some common printing problems. We wrap up the day by bringing it all together by showing you the full beginning-to-end process; you’ll see it all, from taking the images into Lightroom, sorting, process, proofing, and even outputting the print right in class. Seeing this real world workflow come together live in class really “makes it stick” and brings it all together to make this incredible day of learning a career-changing experience.
Notice the part on SP??????
Wait a minute - I'm confused here. What's wrong with Andrew and Jeff's attitudes about soft-proofing - if that's what you mean "by extension"? I don't see any problem with it - pretty straightforward to me.
As for the "Killer Tips" seminar - well it sure could be a killer - I mean they mention proofing in Lightroom - as far as I know the only way to do that there is to make a print and then another one - unless they round trip people through Photoshop's soft-proofing back into Lightroom???? But they don't advise doing it in PS. So.................????
As for my suggestion that they explain themselves in this Forum - no harm inviting them. We're open-minded folks willing to hear what they have to say about it. You may well be correct that they wouldn't do it, but once invited, it's up to them how to handle it.
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Mark- I'm questioning his attitude towards Andrew and Jeff's suggestions. I fully support the comments of both Andrew and Jeff.
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Claro
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As for my suggestion that they explain themselves in this Forum - no harm inviting them.
Go ahead but don’t hold your breath. Some don’t like to venture outside their own blog or forum.
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Wait a minute - I'm confused here. What's wrong with Andrew and Jeff's attitudes about soft-proofing - if that's what you mean "by extension"? I don't see any problem with it - pretty straightforward to me.
As for the "Killer Tips" seminar - well it sure could be a killer - I mean they mention proofing in Lightroom - as far as I know the only way to do that there is to make a print and then another one - unless they round trip people through Photoshop's soft-proofing back into Lightroom???? But they don't advise doing it in PS. So.................????
As for my suggestion that they explain themselves in this Forum - no harm inviting them. We're open-minded folks willing to hear what they have to say about it. You may well be correct that they wouldn't do it, but once invited, it's up to them how to handle it.
Mark, there is a third party plugin (http://www.lightroom-plugins.com/ProofIndex.php) available for soft proofing in LR.
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Mark, there is a third party plugin (http://www.lightroom-plugins.com/ProofIndex.php) available for soft proofing in LR.
This has been mentioned a couple of times on various threads but I've not seen anyone give it an actual test run and compare it to what can be done in PS.
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This has been mentioned a couple of times on various threads but I've not seen anyone give it an actual test run and compare it to what can be done in PS.
It's ok...it does allow a side by side view of the original and the soft proofed side. You can compare rendering intents but you can't easily adjust the image in place. For me it wouldn't take the place of doing final soft proofing in Photoshop and then return the adjusted image to Lightroom for printing...
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You can save the proofed version and the original, view them side by side in Compare then use the Quick Develop tools in the Library module to adjust the proof but there's no access to the full tools available in the Develop module for doing a side by side. It's more than a little fussy to do all that too, and it's not as useful as PS.
Nat Coalson did a review (http://www.natcoalson.com/blog/2010/12/13/soft-proofing-in-lightroom-now-available/) of it last December.
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Bob, thanks for the reference; I had not seen that review of this plug in. Jeff thanks for your comments as well; looks like I'll stick with PS since I already own it and wait for the LR team to incorporate soft proofing at some future date.
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What if you were sharing your files with your clients? Would soft-proofing be useful then?
At netsas.com we bet that the “right level” of color management is quite necessary. We introduced it in Shortcut, “your online personal interface” for collaboration on images and projects (see http://netsas.com/en).
You might still need to show the actual result on paper, but I think online softproofing saves time in the earlier steps and avoids surprises.
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Hi Guys
Well the old chestnut rears it head again.
To answer Andrews question "soft proofing doesnt work'.
Yes
Go look at colour space viewing conditions and you will find your answer.
I recommend Mark Fairchild's book on Colour Appearance.
Unfortunately colour science has now migrated into the end users hands wether you like it or not.
If you want to produce good colour imaging learn some colour science.
Cant say any more than that really. Oh and this goes to Adobe as well.
Iain
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Hi Guys
Well the old chestnut rears it head again.
To answer Andrews question "soft proofing doesnt work'.
Yes
Go look at colour space viewing conditions and you will find your answer.
I recommend Mark Fairchild's book on Colour Appearance.
Unfortunately colour science has now migrated into the end users hands wether you like it or not.
If you want to produce good colour imaging learn some colour science.
Cant say any more than that really. Oh and this goes to Adobe as well.
Iain
Yup, I'm and end-user and I like colour management AND soft-proofing. I think between the ICC, Adobe, Epson et. al, on the whole they've done a great job at making very useful tools available to all us clueless end-users, and guess what - we don't even need a Ph.D. in colour science to use them properly and achieve superb, reliable results most of the time. That's the beauty of it.
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Cant say any more than that really. Oh and this goes to Adobe as well.
Can't or won't?
So, do you make prints?
As a practical matter, do you have anything useful to suggest above and beyond soft proofing in Photoshop?
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Hi Guys
Well the old chestnut rears it head again.
To answer Andrews question "soft proofing doesnt work'.
Yes
Go look at colour space viewing conditions and you will find your answer.
I recommend Mark Fairchild's book on Colour Appearance.
Unfortunately colour science has now migrated into the end users hands wether you like it or not.
If you want to produce good colour imaging learn some colour science.
Cant say any more than that really. Oh and this goes to Adobe as well.
Iain
Wow... I must have missed the memo...
I guess the hundreds of soft proofed, subsequently tweaked and accurate prints I have here in my studio in my artists file were all just flukes. I guess I wasted my time soft proofing them when I could have just printed them by guessing the rendering intent and making assumptions as to how to tweak.
You see here's the thing... since I started soft proofing some years ago (I forget how many now) I have not had to make a single additional print because I chose the wrong rendering (RelCol or Perceptual). Occasionally, (very very occasionally) I will change something because I am not happy with the first print. But that is a very rare occurrence because of ... yep... you guessed it.. SOFT PROOFING! Soft proofing allows one to accurately see what the finished print will look like and tweak it accordingly. Its an incredibly powerful tool-provided you know how to use it.
Sure.. I could ditch soft proofing and make multiple test prints to choose the best rendering intent. Buy why on earth would I want to waste expensive artist paper and even more expensive pigment ink (more expensive than the finest single malt whiskies) when I can get it right before ink hits paper. I just dont get this mentality. The only sense I can make of it is that 'people' dont understand how to use soft proofing; therefore in their mind 'it doesnt work'.
Soft proofing accurately and tweaking accordingly takes more than a 'bit' of skill and a little bot of knowledge. A well calibrated monitor, an accurate profile, correct colour management and PS settings are just some of the cornerstones required. But these alone do not guarantee good results. You need practice - heaps of it. There really is no substitute for experience learned through trial and practice.
I am starting to feel like there is a generation of photographers who quite literally shoot and process for the web almost exclusively. They run their monitors at 100% and scratch their heads when their prints turn out to dark. Its nothing short of laughable that they then turn around and claim soft proofing doesn't work.
You know its one thing to stick your hand up and say 'I don't understand soft proofing, can someone please help me so I can get good prints' and its quite another to come out and blatantly and ignorantly say 'soft proofing doesnt work' (when it clearly does for the fine art printers who have taken the time to understand it).
Phew.. I think I need a coffee....
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Well said that man!
Now can we get back to printing our photos please? S-P or no, please yourself, I do.
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To answer Andrews question "soft proofing doesnt work'.
Yes
Go look at colour space viewing conditions and you will find your answer.
I recommend Mark Fairchild's book on Colour Appearance.
As a matter of fact, I can softproof with devicelink profile calculated to the specific environment viewing condition. But I also agree it could be more straightforward...
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I think it is about personal preferences and tone/colour perception. When I softproof and the customer tells me that the print is an excellent match to the monitor I still see tremendous difference.
With monitors, printers, profiles, CMMs getting better and better and with experience of using hardware and software the need for soft-proof for me is not so immediate; but for working with a customer sitting by my side it is still a viable option, much due to their belief in soft-proofing. I'm also expecting soft-proofing technology to evolve, and that may increase its value for me once again.
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In terms of working with customers, its a really good idea to have soft proofing on (including in some cases, the simulation for paper and ink) before they arrive and never let them see the data in the working space (especially on a wide gamut display). Never show something you can’t produce, many clients will prefer what you can’t reproduce.
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> In terms of working with customers, its a really good idea to have soft proofing on (including in some cases, the simulation for paper and ink) before they arrive
Well, my customers know what soft-proofing is, and in any case I can't switch soft-proofing on when they are selecting raw files for a future catalogue ;)
On a side note, while preparing images for web presentation I found soft-proofing to generic monitor profile extremely useful.
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Not intending to hyjack the thread in any way, but I have a question. I'm still soft proofing my photos from LR3 in CS4. (I've been waiting for SP in LR4 :) ). Am I missing anything with SP by not upgrading to CS5?. Thanks, Dave
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Am I missing anything with SP by not upgrading to CS5?.
Nope...no differences in soft proofing since, well, pretty much since soft proofing was added (as far as I can recall).
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Nope...no differences in soft proofing since, well, pretty much since soft proofing was added (as far as I can recall).
Somewhere along the way black point compensation checkbox was added as far as I recall (CS3?)
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Well, I'm still hanging on. If you went to PSW Vegas last year, I wasn't there because of a conflict between PSW and PODUS Iceland. First one I've missed in a while...but I'm back at PSW Orlando (although I hate Orlando more than Vegas) and will be doing two printing sessions; Printing in Lightroom (and of course soft proofing in Photoshop) and The Art of the Perfect Print which is all about taking a raw image and perfecting it for the final print. Soft proofing is of course involved...also doing Real World Image Sharpening too. So at least there will be one person there who knows how to print :~) Actually JP Caponigro is there too but he's not doing a printing session...
That is good news, because I always enjoy your sessions (and JP's). I look forward to seeing you in vegas this year :)
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Nearly one week after posting the identical poll about soft proofing on the NAPP (subscription only) forums, here’s the results:
No, never use it 4 17.39%
Sometimes 4 17.39%
Better than no SP, not a match 6 26.09%
Yes, always use it 6 26.09%
Just make a print 3 13.04%
36 replies (some damning me for asking the question and “baiting” Matt), 481 page views.
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Nearly one week after posting the identical poll about soft proofing on the NAPP (subscription only) forums, here’s the results:
No, never use it 4 17.39%
Sometimes 4 17.39%
Better than no SP, not a match 6 26.09%
Yes, always use it 6 26.09%
Just make a print 3 13.04%
36 replies (some damning me for asking the question and “baiting” Matt), 481 page views.
Andrew, I find two things disturbing here: (i) the small number of people who have taken an interest in the poll despite how little effort is required to vote, and (ii) the fact that NAPP members would take you to task for questioning instructors' advice about the use of this tool. Either we live in an environment which tolerates and facilitates open inquiry or we don't, and if we don't we are that much the worse off for it - the Cave Man mentality is unfortunately still alive and well, as we've seen in the past on another forum over numerous issues where interests vested in legacy practices were at loggerheads with technical progress. It's really fair-ball to have a free-wheeling discussion about the merits of soft-proofing, and I would have expected a higher level of interest, given its usefulness. Maybe discussions like this will prove useful if they help to expand awareness.
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Andrew, I find two things disturbing here: (i) the small number of people who have taken an interest in the poll despite how little effort is required to vote, and (ii) the fact that NAPP members would take you to task for questioning instructors' advice about the use of this tool. Either we live in an environment which tolerates and facilitates open inquiry or we don't, and if we don't we are that much the worse off for it - the Cave Man mentality is unfortunately still alive and well, as we've seen in the past on another forum over numerous issues where interests vested in legacy practices were at loggerheads with technical progress. It's really fair-ball to have a free-wheeling discussion about the merits of soft-proofing, and I would have expected a higher level of interest, given its usefulness. Maybe discussions like this will prove useful if they help to expand awareness.
Mark, you forget that you live in Canada. Things are much more enlightened north of our border!
Alan
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Mark, you forget that you live in Canada. Things are much more enlightened north of our border!
Alan
Really? And how many Canadians are taking part in this poll or discussion? :-) (But thanks for the confidence!)
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The one person venting the most at my expense is located in Florida I believe <g>.
Either we live in an environment which tolerates and facilitates open inquiry or we don't,
We don’t. Well I was told that posting a poll here and on NAPP was all about me, my beliefs about soft proofing and forcing CMS on people and had nothing to do with gauging how users feel about soft proofing. I figured the opposite. I don’t know how asking people about the satisfaction and usage of their tools is anything more than gathering data points.
At least over on those forums, its more a religious argument (the term was used) than one of inquiry and science. What is disturbing to me is the number of users who have issues with print matching and soft proofing who would rather ignore the problems. If you ask about the problems or try to assist, you get shot down. Kind of like the photographer who unknowingly has his exposure compensation set to minus 2 stops, just builds a preset in LR to adjust for this and when someone suggests there might be an issue elsewhere, is told all is fine, there’s no reason to investigate why all captured images are dark. All while a much larger group has no such issues (for obvious reasons, they are using the tools correctly).
I guess ignorance is bliss.
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Andrew I'm sorry that some people are making this "all about you". Really, posting a poll about a process and opening up discussion seems to me that is what a forum is all about. Do I use softproofing - yes. Did I take the poll, yes. Do I know it's not perfect, yes. But it is a tool to use if you understand its limitations. Aside from that, I personally appreciate your effort on this forum not only in this area but the effort you have put in on certain other topics that directly affected my workflow. So, I just wanted you to know I do appreciate when you take on a topic and follow it up to the end. Have a good weekend. I'm sorry, but my ignorance is bliss thing has never worked very well for me.
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ignorance is bliss thing has never worked very well for me.
Me neither. It usually comes back to bite, so best be informed, then decide what to do about it.
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I think it's not about ignorance, it's lack of interest. Most people just don't print anymore, so they don't really care about soft proofing.
There are countless digital photography forums, with countless members and topics about cameras, lenses and photo editing software all over the internet - so why there's so few color management & printing discussions?
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I think it's not about ignorance, it's lack of interest. Most people just don't print anymore, so they don't really care about softproofing.
This could be what is going on. More being done with electronic media where the limitations are with the monitor and the JPG is king. It would be interesting to know how many prints Kelby and Kozloski sell each year.
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This could be what is going on. More being done with electronic media where the limitations are with the monitor and the JPG is king. It would be interesting to know how many prints Kelby and Kozloski sell each year.
Those guys at NAPP are probably making money hand-over-fist writing and selling books, which has to be just about a full time pre-occupation to look at the number of titles. There's no way they'd ever manufacture the volume of business they're probably doing if they were making and selling prints.
It's likely true that many more people are posting JPEGs on the internet rather than printing, but there must still be a very large number of folks printing pictures. I can't for a moment believe that the printer divisions of Epson, Canon and HP are investing in a dead-end proposition. There's simply too much money at stake to be making those kind of miscalculations over a long period of time.
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I can't for a moment believe that the printer divisions of Epson, Canon and HP are investing in a dead-end proposition. There's simply too much money at stake to be making those kind of miscalculations over a long period of time.
They're selling tons of LF printers for CAD, GIS, display signage etc. High-end photographic printers are only by-products - also used in pre-press proofing, and graphic fine art.
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High-end photographic printers are only by-products
You know this for sure?
And I might add not all the photographic printers they invest tons of money in are so "high-end".
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You know this for sure?
And I might add not all the photographic printers they invest tons of money in are so "high-end".
Mark, you can see the Epson 3rd quarter report here (http://global.epson.com/IR/pdf/results_2010_3q_e.pdf). They state "unit shipments were hurt by fierce competition in Asia. In the business printer category, unit shipments of large-format printers grew, in large part due to the effects of new products for the signage market in North America." You can go through the exercise of seeing what % of total corporate sales printers were (I'm too lazy to do so since this is really not a company I'm interested in investing in for a variety of reasons). They also note that consumer printers are subject to extraordinary price competition (no surprise there) and that their sales fell.
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Mark, you can see the Epson 3rd quarter report here (http://global.epson.com/IR/pdf/results_2010_3q_e.pdf). They state "unit shipments were hurt by fierce competition in Asia. In the business printer category, unit shipments of large-format printers grew, in large part due to the effects of new products for the signage market in North America." You can go through the exercise of seeing what % of total corporate sales printers were (I'm too lazy to do so since this is really not a company I'm interested in investing in for a variety of reasons). They also note that consumer printers are subject to extraordinary price competition (no surprise there) and that their sales fell.
Alan, we're getting way OT, but just as a footnote, one quarter or even one year isn't necessarily determinative of anything. Epson is part of Seiko and they've been in this game for the long term. That doesn't look likely to change any time soon.
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Alan, we're getting way OT, but just as a footnote, one quarter or even one year isn't necessarily determinative of anything. Epson is part of Seiko and they've been in this game for the long term. That doesn't look likely to change any time soon.
I'll conclude by agreeing with you. I think HP is much more in danger of exiting this market than either Epson or Canon.
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I'll conclude by agreeing with you. I think HP is much more in danger of exiting this market than either Epson or Canon.
HP is currently #1 in water based LF unit sales, ahead of Canon (2) and Epson (3)
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Either we live in an environment which tolerates and facilitates open inquiry or we don't, and if we don't we are that much the worse off for it - the Cave Man mentality ...
Here’s a caveman attitude found on the blog post that started this (http://lightroomkillertips.com/2011/did-you-know-lightroom-can-soft-proof/#comments):
RC February 24, 2011 at 9:14 am:
250-300cd/m2
*eyes roll into the back of his head and foam comes out the mouth*
*Thud*
Geeze, you’d think this guy could calibrate his display and RTFM in order to educate himself about the scale used for luminance but apparently that’s so difficult it makes foam come out of his (or others as he suggests) mouths. Its not enough these guys have zero curiosity as to why some of their members have difficulties with soft proofing (while even the poll on their forms show most do not). Or that they have zero interest in understanding how a tool that’s been in Photoshop since 1998 works. Now just learning about a different scale of measurement makes at least one guru’s eyes roll into the back of his head. What a role model for an educator!
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Here’s a caveman attitude found on the blog post that started this (http://lightroomkillertips.com/2011/did-you-know-lightroom-can-soft-proof/#comments):
Geeze, you’d think this guy could calibrate his display and RTRF in order to educate himself about the scale used for luminance but apparently that’s so difficult it makes foam come out of his (or others as he suggests) mouths. Its not enough these guys have zero curiosity as to why some of their members have difficulties with soft proofing (while even the poll on their forms show most do not). Or that they have zero interest in understanding how a tool that’s been in Photoshop since 1998 works. Now just learning about a different scale of measurement makes at least one guru’s eyes roll into the back of his head. What a role model for an educator!
OMG, what kind of confused discussion is that? He's (talking about Matt's original comment and responses) got previewing sharpening mixed-up with softproofing, whereas in fact the one has NOTHING to do with the other. He likes his display real bright because he doesn't do much printing with it and wants his iTunes and video games to be snappy; well fine as far as that goes - but beside the point - the issue here is the display brightness appropriate in the context of printing. And because soft-proofing doesn't help resolve the "prints too dark" issue or the sharpening issue which are the two things he says most people care about most of the time, soft-proofing isn't too useful *for him* - well maybe it would be better to discuss softproofing in the context of what it is meant to resolve for the people who want to resolve it, rather than what it isn't meant to resolve and relative to those people who aren't interested in really predictable printing. But he was honest enough to recognize that these are his own opinions and he did recognize that other peoples' MMV. Nothing wrong in that, but what is disturbing is the muddled thinking in terms of logic, context and relevance. People who have trouble with reading between the lines and doing some independent thinking may be tempted to set aside both proper display calibration and soft-proofing simply because of a prominent instructor's say-so, no matter how contorted the underlying thought processes leading to those conclusions. Then when they get crappy prints, they'll start new threads in places like this wondering what on earth could be wrong. Sigh.
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Here’s a caveman attitude found on the blog post that started this (http://lightroomkillertips.com/2011/did-you-know-lightroom-can-soft-proof/#comments):
Geeze, you’d think this guy could calibrate his display and RTRF in order to educate himself about the scale used for luminance but apparently that’s so difficult it makes foam come out of his (or others as he suggests) mouths. Its not enough these guys have zero curiosity as to why some of their members have difficulties with soft proofing (while even the poll on their forms show most do not). Or that they have zero interest in understanding how a tool that’s been in Photoshop since 1998 works. Now just learning about a different scale of measurement makes at least one guru’s eyes roll into the back of his head. What a role model for an educator!
My read of the quote is that RC is agreeing with you!!! It was his only post on the thread and I think he was mocking others.
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Yes, I think RC was just being tongue-in-cheek - trying to defuse a hot discussion.
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I'm not so sure... RC Conception is a work colleague of Matt Kloskowski's and a co-presenter of various Kelby TV shows and I think it unlikely he would openly disagree in that way on a public forum.
Anthony.
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You may well be correct; the comment can be interpreted a number of ways - hard to know for sure.
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Yes, I think RC was just being tongue-in-cheek - trying to defuse a hot discussion.
He said the same thing on the NAPP forums and is the guy in Florida I referred to. He is defending Matt for Matt on the forums. The behavior is, you disagree with one of the choir members, someone else there comes out of the woodwork and tells you that you are baiting the issue, or you are forcing the issue etc. I was told the poll here was created to push my agenda, that Lula is a website dedicated to talking about the things I care about, that only 66 people at the time replied to the poll so in essence, the poll itself is meaningless and a vehicle for me to “force color management on people”. IOW, don’t rock the boat, don’t ask questions (don’t question authority or the religion). Now it seems that even posting to the blog is moderated (my last post today, explaining how cd/m2 isn’t necessarily the cause for eyes rolling into your head isn’t being posted). So now censorship has reared its ugly head. Basically this blog is a vehicle to propose personal ideas and marketing, you can vocally agree with the blog post, but don’t dare question or ask if the opinions are scientifically sound.
I don’t think its my place to copy and past RC’s comments towards me here but I can assure you, its not tongue-in-cheek. His posture is rather nasty, he seems to have no desire to discuss this subject in any kind of scientific or constructive way. Its all a defensive stance and I don’t understand why he feels he needs to go this route. If he can demonstratively show how and why SP doesn’t work (for him or others), I’m willing to go there. My experience so far with a number of these guys is, they simply don’t want to investigate this topic. Their minds are made it and trying to help them get past what I believe are technical issues (like driving your display 100%, improper calibration targets, deciding that using a metric like cd/m2 is just too difficult), isn’t on their agenda. I can’t explain what appears to be the anti-soft proof, color management agenda. I don’t see how that is helpful.
FWIW, I when pushed about why I keep discussing this, I made it clear I do have a mission statement, one that’s been on my web site since 1995: The Digital Dog is devoted to the understanding and adoption of color management. There are some members that are having SP difficulties and I’d be willing to assist in helping them. But the blow back is an issue.
I’m kind of embarrassed to be a member of NAPP, and need to seriously consider renewing my membership after nearly 5 years. Although I’ll miss the community and members I’ve encountered over the years. There are some great people there.
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My read of the quote is that RC is agreeing with you!!! It was his only post on the thread and I think he was mocking others.
Expect last week on the NAPP forums where the SP poll resides, he said his personal hypothesis is that most people's eyes roll into the back of their head when talk of Colorimeters, Soft Proofing, ICC, Gamut, and Gamma appears. So no, he’s simply taking that closed forum post to the blog. He’s baiting me <g>.
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FWIW, I when pushed about why I keep discussing this, I made it clear I do have a mission statement, one that’s been on my web site since 1995: The Digital Dog is devoted to the understanding and adoption of color management. There are some members that are having SP difficulties and I’d be willing to assist in helping them. But the blow back is an issue.
I’m kind of embarrassed to be a member of NAPP, and need to seriously consider renewing my membership after nearly 5 years. Although I’ll miss the community and members I’ve encountered over the years. There are some great people there.
I wouldn't give up membership over this one issue just because a few of their staff don't get it. In your position, however, if they are censoring blogposts, it's bad and they deserve to know that. Better to push for correct behaviour from within than to walk out and *lose the baby with the bathwater*. You may recall similar issues with one other forum - in that case the prospects for reason and reasonableness became utterly hopeless; but this is a much bigger and far more diversed show, nowhere near that point. As you say, lots of good people and good stuff there. Just work on them gently - maybe you'll get them to start soft-proofing one of these days - if they ever make prints! :-)
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Expect last week on the NAPP forums where the SP poll resides, he said his personal hypothesis is that most people's eyes roll into the back of their head when talk of Colorimeters, Soft Proofing, ICC, Gamut, and Gamma appears. So no, he’s simply taking that closed forum post to the blog. He’s baiting me <g>.
Not a reason to keep people in the Cave. What's the poll on that site showing? Should be possible to determine objectively how much rolling of eyes there is.
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Not to add fuel to the fire but has anyone view Matt's tutorial on Kelby Training about sharpening. He seems to spend alot of time discussing just smart sharpen and not helping to define what to look for when doing creative or output sharpening. Maybe it is that the NAPP group don't print very much nor worry about the extra improvement soft proofing and shrpening workflow can provide.
Just my 2 cents.
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On Feb 10th Matt K wrote:
"The whole brightness/calibration thing… my issue with it is that if you calibrate your monitor and set your brightness where it should be (so that the print looks like your screen) then you end up setting your brightness on your screen to around 20-40%. I don’t know about you, but I like my bright screen. See, I don’t print for a living. My guess is that not many people following this blog do. I email, surf the web, creative videos, write articles, surf iTunes, etc… on my computer. I don’t want to set (and I think most people don’t either) my monitor brightness down for something I only do once in a while. I paid a lot of money for a nice bright screen. I like the way it looks. So I’d rather do a test print to get the print to look right, rather than reduce my whole computer experience. That’s just me though :)"
I don't think you can argue with Matt K. premise - just that he doesn't remind everyone of his specifics when he makes a global statement as he did in the blog opening on on Feb 9th "The main issues that I hear when it comes to printing revolve around a) the prints being too dark and, b) not being able to proof your output sharpening. Well, soft proofing doesn’t really solve either of these. But you know what does? A test print :)"
1) Don't know where Matt ever thought print output sharpening has ever been connected to soft proofing,
2) Under his typical monitor use conditions limited to "email, surf the web, creative videos, write articles, surf iTunes, etc, as well as assuming "not many people following his blog (print) and he himself only prints "once in a while", then maybe a bright screen for his non-printing monitor use 99% of the time makes perfect sense, as does his rare printing not need soft proofing.
If one doesn't print, then one does not need soft proofing, and why not enjoy his bright monitor in his (probably) bright PC room - so he can see the screen better.
So it seems to me the original argument (Feb 9th) was taken out of context, since Matt presumed (Feb 10th) that both he and his blog followers don't or very infrequently print, so why worry about soft proofing, when a hard proof is rarely even needed for the even rare print.
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I don't think you can argue with Matt K. premise
Ah, sure you can. I have superb print to display match, driving my SpectraView at 150cd/m2. And that settings is just fine, no issues what so ever, viewing other content. Web, video, text editing, everything!
Maybe Matt’s too young to have worked on CRT displays where new, out of the box, you might be hard pressed to hit anything over 95cd/m2. The world didn’t come to an end and people didn’t complain even 5 years ago that such displays were too dim to surf the web or view videos.
Assuming he really is driving a modern LCD at 100%, that’s got to be a good 250cd/m2. Its a waste of energy, it ensures the display will wear out much faster, its unnecessary. His idea that anyone needs to drive a modern LCD at 100% is bogus.
If one doesn't print, then one does not need soft proofing, and why not enjoy his bright monitor in his (probably) bright PC room - so he can see the screen better.
For the reasons I’ve expressed above.
So it seems to me the original argument (Feb 9th) was taken out of context, since Matt presumed (Feb 10th) that both he and his blog followers don't or very infrequently print, so why worry about soft proofing, when a hard proof is rarely even needed for the even rare print.
Print infrequently or never? His stance, clearly outlined on the blog is, just make a print. If its off, adjust and make another. Sounds like someone who either hardly ever prints (hence take the advise with a grain of salt) or someone who never needs to pay for paper and ink (in which case, take the advise with a grain of salt).
And his comment twice on the blog that soft proofing doesn’t “solve” or help the prints are too dark issue, completely fails to recognize that the issue is improper display calibration! Or maybe he doesn’t even calibrate his display. That make more sense based on his take on how displays and prints correlate.
Anyone that suggests and recommends they drive their LCD at max brightness is about as irresponsible as someone recommending you turn your water heater up as high as it will go (then taking a hot shower) or driving on the highway as fast as the car will go. Just because you can, its probably a very bad idea that you do.
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I don't know how highly regarded Rob Sheppard is in the printing world, I haven't been into 'digital' long enough to be familiar with him but,I mentioned this before and will quote his comments on the subject, taken from page 64 of his "New Epson Complete Guide To Digital printing which was released a few months ago. He states...
"Make a work print"
"As discussed earlier in the book,a print is a very different animal from an image on a monitor.You must judge what a print needs by looking at the print as it's own entity,rather than simply comparing it to the monitor.I really part company with some of the more computer oriented folks on this subject.They believe all you need to do is soft proofing on the computer and that prints are not necessary.I do not believe it is possible to get the best possible image without making a print to evaluate.
I think it is unfortunate too that the internet breeds a certain cynicism that is not always based on real-world experience. There is an idea out there that making more prints is just a sell out to Epson so they can make more money. This is a disservice to photographers who really want to go beyond a good print to a magnificent print.The historically great printers such as Ansel Adams and W.Eugene Smith, would sometimes make hundreds of prints until they got one they liked,refining each print one at a time.
You don't need to make a multitude of prints because you can evaluate an image on the monitor,but you cannot use the monitor as your ultimate judge of a photo without at least some work prints.After looking at your prints,you will be able to refine your earlier adjustments to make an even better print."
I take his statement as meaning, in essence...
As with other endeavors in life, it really depends on just how far you want to go to achieve something close to "perfection"
I don't take his statement as meaning that "soft proofing doesn't work" but rather don't depend solely upon it .
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Perhaps it would have been appropriate for Matt to state if true, that he does not print often. Otherwise it seems a bit irresponsible not to notify those that take his advise that there are other methods that have benefits, ie soft proofing. Even if you make test prints, soft proofing gets you closer to the final product faster and reduces the number of prints that are necessary and the subsequent ink usage.
It is as if a surgeon dismisses a technique that he/she needs to discuss with a patient just because that surgeon doesn't use it. That would be a violation of informed consent and if you are teaching, is there not a responsibility to discuss all relevant issues and not dismiss them. If you give your opinion when teaching you still must list the pros/cons of all available techniques and allow the participant decide what is best for them.
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Yes, make a work print (or maybe its the final print). It does allow you to see the proof (the proof is in the print). It shows you the sharpening which we can’t ‘soft proof’.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting you not make a print (work or final). The question is, does soft proofing eliminate a lot of guess work? In fact, how do you even decide a rendering intent without a soft proof?
Why calibrate the display? Ask Matt or RC. Color management is totally unnecessary if you believe that one edits and prints until a desired print appearance is produced. There’s zero reason to calibrate the display or even use output profiles. Just alter the RGB values until you get something on print you like.
I don't take his statement as meaning that "soft proofing doesn't work" but rather don't depend solely upon it .
I’d agree, its not something to solely depend upon.
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If soft proofing was not important than why would all the paper manufacturer's make icc profiles available for paper/printer combinations. If the manufacturer's think it is important than perhaps NAPP/Matt would be wise to re-evaluate their position.
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The point of a soft proof is not to eliminate prints, but rather to give predicability and consistency when working using a monitor with the aim of producing a print. It means you can reasonably anticipate what the changes you see on screen will look like in print such that, with experience, you can minimise the number of prints necessary to get the one you want.
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I don't know how highly regarded Rob Sheppard is in the printing world,
I don't know either because there hasn't been a poll. His Amazon sales rank is 157,366. Published in 2008 with 10 reviews. Schewe and Evening's Photoshop Ultimate Workshop was published a very short time ago, has 28 reviews and is 7516 in the sales rank (about 20 times better within several months). That should put things in perspective. And who is "the printing world" - it's people like you and me. As I said near the start of this thread, I like to keep my waste ratio down, so I use soft-proofing. But I understand there can many folks out there who think nothing of wasting materials by not using proven technologies, probably because they don't do enough critical print-making to care about it. But the educator needs to think beyond their love of iTunes and video games when it comes to dispensing advice on best practices FOR PRINTING.
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Well...some people know how to make excellent prints, some people don't (but are still willing to write books about printing). I know what I know...ya know?
I know that soft proofing is an excellent (but not perfect) tool for helping to extract the maximum image quality of my digital captures.
If that is important; capture to print, then I'm inclined to leave nothing on the table. I know how to soft proof, I also know a bit about image sharpening...if you want the best, optimized images for final ink jet printing then you need to take a couple of steps to make sure you get the best you can get from your images.
If the "best" isn't important, you can omit a few steps and accept what you get after doing a proof print and twiddling a couple of adjustments. Is is the best potential outcome? No way...is it "good enough"? Probably for many people. Not for me.
I all depends on your expectations...do you want the best output? If the answer is yes, then why would you ever leave a stone unturned?
I think it boils down to expectations...my expectations are pretty high. Not everybody has those expectations...to say it bluntly, some people accept far less than what I would accept in final printed form. Like I said, I'm a pretty good printer...not everybody has those high expectations. I do.
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If soft proofing was not important than why would all the paper manufacturer's make icc profiles available for paper/printer combinations. If the manufacturer's think it is important than perhaps NAPP/Matt would be wise to re-evaluate their position.
Output ICC profiles (paper/printer) are necessary for printing, not just for soft proofing. As an example, LR does not have soft proofing, but you still use ICC profiles for printing.
Anyway, I believe in soft proofing and always use it.
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And his comment twice on the blog that soft proofing doesn’t “solve” or help the prints are too dark issue, completely fails to recognize that the issue is improper display calibration! Or maybe he doesn’t even calibrate his display. That make more sense based on his take on how displays and prints correlate.
I'd say it's professional cognitive blindness in action from the so called "Expert Bias" and "Expectation Bias". When one reaches a perceived level of authority one can start to believe that one is correct by benefit of being an authority on a particular subject, and lead others to believe they are correct since they perceive them as an authority on a particular subject. They also have inherent expectations of what data they prefer and will not willingly admit they were incorrect if say, overwhelming data is displayed that shows they are indeed incorrect.
There's certainly enough biases to go around, it's important professionals keep an open mind over most (if not all) things they consider since it's easy to slip into the trap of assuming the way we're doing things now is still the best way of doing it. I'm not sure if it's worth arguing the case too strongly since their inherent biases will always argue that they are correct (especially in corner cases, post-rationalisation, etc), their egos demand it. For what it's worth, I've rarely met experts who willingly admit they were wrong...
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Output ICC profiles (paper/printer) are necessary for printing, not just for soft proofing.
Well they are not even necessary for that. As I wrote, you can alter RGB values till the cows come home and you get a desirable print without a calibrated display or an ICC profile (most print drivers provide means of bypassing ICC profiles). Color management is totally unnecessary if you have the time and money to make lots and lots of prints until you reach your goal.
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Glad i have profiles. They will get my cows home, in much less time and money ;D
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I all depends on your expectations...do you want the best output? If the answer is yes, then why would you ever leave a stone unturned?
I think it boils down to expectations...my expectations are pretty high. Not everybody has those expectations...to say it bluntly, some people accept far less than what I would accept in final printed form. Like I said, I'm a pretty good printer...not everybody has those high expectations. I do.
Jeff, that very statement is so true, and about sums up the collective human experience. It doesn't only apply to printing. Every person on earth has different "expectations" of what he or she desires as a final outcome of their endeavors.To coin a phrase...
One mans trash, is another mans treasure.
That's what makes the world go round.