Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: kencameron on February 28, 2012, 02:13:23 am

Title: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: kencameron on February 28, 2012, 02:13:23 am
I have been very happy with the results of  soft proofing and printing 16 MP RW2 files from a Panasonic G3 to a Canon 9500. I soft proof the file using a canned icc profile for the paper/printer  then switch to the print module, with no change in the appearance of the file on screen, then print it and get what I expect, give or take minor differences attritutable to screen brightness, ambient light etc. I then decide to revisit some 6 MP 2004 Canon Raw files from an EOS 300D to see if the 2012 process can get more out of them. Developing goes ok, but printing is a problem. The soft proofing part goes as expected, but then when I switch to the print module the file on screen heavily loses saturation. Oranges turn to dull yellows. Then when I actually print, the colors go back to more or less what they were in the Develop Module, but the print looks significantly darker than I expected, which hadn't been happening with the 2012 files. Nothing unmanageable here with a few test prints, but I don't understand why the file should look so different in the Develop and Print Modules or why the file as printed should be so much darker than the file on screen, all other variables being kept constant, AFAIK. Is this a bug, or just evidence that one should not expect miracles out of old files? I am using 64 bit windows 7.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: Schewe on February 28, 2012, 10:51:04 am
How are your displays profiled?
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: kencameron on February 28, 2012, 03:21:10 pm
Display calibrated using a "Spyder 3"  device. Last done a few weeks ago. Will do again and see if the problem persists.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: Peter Thomson on March 04, 2012, 02:16:13 am
Lula Beta testers
The rendering intent soft proofed in the Develop module is not transferred to the Print module on my Beta copy on a Windows 32 bit system; I can't find any reference to this here or at Adobe;a bug or a gotcha? Has this been noted before?
Peter
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: Schewe on March 04, 2012, 02:18:45 am
What sort of output profile? A print/paper profile or a display profile like sRGB?
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: kencameron on March 05, 2012, 03:35:14 pm
Lula Beta testers
The rendering intent soft proofed in the Develop module is not transferred to the Print module

I am getting this too on my windows 64 system. The print module does not pick up the rendering intent chosen in soft proofing, but rather retains whatever the setting was the last time anything was printed.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: kencameron on March 05, 2012, 03:47:54 pm
I have been very happy with the results of  soft proofing and printing 16 MP RW2 files from a Panasonic G3 to a Canon 9500. I soft proof the file using a canned icc profile for the paper/printer  then switch to the print module, with no change in the appearance of the file on screen, then print it and get what I expect, give or take minor differences attritutable to screen brightness, ambient light etc. I then decide to revisit some 6 MP 2004 Canon Raw files from an EOS 300D to see if the 2012 process can get more out of them. Developing goes ok, but printing is a problem. The soft proofing part goes as expected, but then when I switch to the print module the file on screen heavily loses saturation. Oranges turn to dull yellows. Then when I actually print, the colors go back to more or less what they were in the Develop Module, but the print looks significantly darker than I expected, which hadn't been happening with the 2012 files. Nothing unmanageable here with a few test prints, but I don't understand why the file should look so different in the Develop and Print Modules or why the file as printed should be so much darker than the file on screen, all other variables being kept constant, AFAIK. Is this a bug, or just evidence that one should not expect miracles out of old files? I am using 64 bit windows 7.
Further research suggests this has to do with very heavy editing on the file in question. Most 2004 300D files work fine, but in a couple in which I extracted very large (probably excessive) amounts of detail from both shadows and highlights the colors look markedly different on screen when I switch from the develop module to print. Soft proofing done with a canned Ilford Profile for Smooth Pearl paper, monitor calibrated using Spyder hardware, Windows 7 64 bit.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: Peter Thomson on March 06, 2012, 06:54:14 am
Ken
Andrew Rodney says at the end of his digitaldog.net Soft Proofing video #2 that the Virtual Proof rendering intent overrides the intent shown in the Print module if a template is created & used. I haven't tried this yet, the shipped product &/or the LuLa videos may clarify.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: madmanchan on March 06, 2012, 08:10:14 am
This is correct.  This makes it possible, for example, to use different intents on different images on the same page (e.g., if you wanted to compare results side-by-side on the same printed sheet of paper, or you need to print a bunch of different small images on a single printed sheet of paper).
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: kencameron on March 09, 2012, 03:31:14 am
Thanks to all. As not infrequently before, an apparent bug turns out to be a useful feature on closer examination.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: digitaldog on March 09, 2012, 12:03:13 pm
This makes it possible, for example, to use different intents on different images on the same page (e.g., if you wanted to compare results side-by-side on the same printed sheet of paper, or you need to print a bunch of different small images on a single printed sheet of paper).

Yeah, try doing that (easily) in Photoshop! Another major plus to using LR for print.
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: JimGoshorn on March 09, 2012, 03:01:18 pm
This makes it possible, for example, to use different intents on different images on the same page

What would also be handy would be to have output sharpening assigned by the image so you could mix images together on a page as well.

Jim
Title: Re: Issue with soft proofing and printing in LR4 Beta
Post by: Schewe on March 09, 2012, 06:00:17 pm
What would also be handy would be to have output sharpening assigned by the image so you could mix images together on a page as well.

You mean different output sharpening? The current output sharpening already sharpens all images that are put into a multi-image layout...