What changes do you usually make when Softproofing?

[HSakols]

I'm curious what others typically do while soft proofing. I always just check the difference between relative and perceptual and have played a little with contrast.  I understand that this question is dependent on the media you are printing on. 

[Mark D Segal]

Anything the photo requires, except for sharpening and noise mitigation which are not affected. Generally you should expect much more adjusting for matte papers than for luster or glossy.

[graeme]

Anything the photo requires, except for sharpening and noise mitigation which are not affected. Generally you should expect much more adjusting for matte papers than for luster or glossy.

+1
I pay extra attention to any unprintable saturated deep blues in an image & try & tweak them so they shift towards green rather than purple. ( Less offensive to my eyes ).

I usually whack up the clarity / midtone contrast before printing.

[Iluvmycam]

I don't. I just do work prints.

[digitaldog]

I pick the rendering intent I visually prefer per image.
IF I see a difference in the soft proof, with the simulate paper and ink on that I don't care for, I may try to do a slight, output specific edit to bring it closer to the original. There's only so much one can do in this respect and the edits are often small. Slight curves adjustment, maybe a tiny tweak to saturation and HSL or in PS, Hue/Sat. In PS I can drag and drop all these layers onto other similar files so I don't have to reinvent each edit. In LR, it's all done on a Proof Copy, again one can copy and paste these output specific corrections to other similar images for print.

[Brian Gilkes]

All Photoshop editing is soft proofed . In addition to standard edits,   including those already mentioned , I may reassign colour spaces into variants, check changed blending modes and masks. Out of gamut colours are corrected usually by selective desaturation but sometimes by hue.Multiple profiles may be compared.

[digitaldog]

Out of gamut colours are corrected usually by selective desaturation....

Ouch. I need to work on a video showing why this is a great technique for those charging by the hour and not so great for any other purpose

[Mark D Segal]

Ouch. I need to work on a video showing why this is a great technique for those charging by the hour and not so great for any other purpose

Andrew, Much of what Brian describes above being implemented very quickly. Yes, one prefers the faster/more automated methods, but sometimes the more arcane interventions are useful and needn't take much time at all with the tools we're using nowadays.

[digitaldog]

Andrew, Much of what Brian describes above being implemented very quickly. Yes, one prefers the faster/more automated methods, but sometimes the more arcane interventions are useful and needn't take much time at all with the tools we're using nowadays.

It's more than speed, it's about quality and control. Considering that the OOG overlay treats any degree of OOG the same, there's zero granularity in seeing, selecting and editing this misinformation (the overlay is inaccurate and buggy), it's a bit like color correcting on a grayscale display system. The output profile isn't blind to this one bit!

[Mark D Segal]

It's more than speed, it's about quality and control. Considering that the OOG overlay treats any degree of OOG the same, there's zero granularity in seeing, selecting and editing this misinformation (the overlay is inaccurate and buggy), it's a bit like color correcting on a grayscale display system. The output profile isn't blind to this one bit!

Well, you mentioned the speed aspect (charging by the hour), not me. But focusing on the substance - agreed - I never ever use those OOG overlays. As you say, inaccurate and opaque. If we're talking about handling OOG colours, I think there are two basic approaches: either edit the colour so it becomes IG, or as you say, let the output profile deal with it. I believe what Brian achieves by desaturating OOG colour is that some desaturation brings the colours more into gamut and therefore allows suppressed detail to be revealed. I think we've all seen how this can play out - can be very useful, depending.

[digitaldog]

Well, you mentioned the speed aspect (charging by the hour), not me.

I mentioned it because it's the only reason to go down that path IMHO.

[digitaldog]

...I think there are two basic approaches: either edit the colour so it becomes IG...

How? We've got OOG overlay up. We could manually use the Sponge Tool set to desaturate until it's gone. We could use Color Range and select OOG colors, then do similar or apply Hue/Sat and move saturation slider down till all OOG goes away. I've tried both and the results compared to just using the profile are pretty awful looking. What else would other's do? Would you attempt to remove all of the OOG overlay, most, at what point is this complete?

[Mark D Segal]

I mentioned it because it's the only reason to go down that path IMHO.

No we don't have the OOG overlay up - I just said I agree with you it's of very limited usefulness. Here's another scenario that makes more sense: Let us say between the non-softproofed monitor image and the soft-proofed one you notice for example that detail in the reds has been compromised in the latter but not the former. By making a carefully controlled leftward saturation slider move of the red group in the LR HSL panel you bring back much of the lost detail under softrpoof with less saturated reds. How far you go is a trade-off - the detail and tonal differentiation improves but the reds become less "rich". So like a lot else in photo editing it's a matter of balance. Where you hit the sweet spot. Maybe it's never "complete" - it's a compromise; depending on the photo what you do with this technique may look better than just letting the profile rip, or it may not; it takes only a moment to find out. We all know - many ways of skinning the cat, so you try this or that to see what works best for the image at hand.

[digitaldog]

Mark and others, I'd like to focus on the OOG overlay behavior and what to do with it.
I just found something odd on this end. I opened an image in ProPhoto RGB that has a lot of saturated colors (part of my Gamut Test File, can post if people need it).

1. Setup a soft proof using my Epson 3880 profile, RelCol.
2. Ask to see OOG overlay. Note that if I go back into Proof Setup and toggle to another profile, the OOG overlay updates as expected. Return back to Epson profile.
3. Open Proof Setup and toggle between RelCol and Perceptual, I see NO difference in OOG overlay which is odd.
4. Duplicate this image. It still has the proof setup with Epson profile, I turn OFF OOG.
5. On duplicate, I use Color Range to select OOG. I then invoke the Quick Mask so I can see what's been selected.

Expected results: Quick Mask overlay and OOG overall in original match.
Actual results: They don't match at all! Not even close.
Color Range is selecting far more colors than what I see with OOG overlay, what's up with that?

[Mark D Segal]

Grateful if you could send me your gamut test file.

[digitaldog]

Grateful if you could send me your gamut test file.

http://digitaldog.net/files/OOGtest.tif
The full file is here:
http://www.digitaldog.net/files/Gamut_Test_File_Flat.tif

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Andrew, I shall do some playing along the lines you suggest as soon as time permits and revert.

Mark

[digitaldog]

Thanks Andrew, I shall do some playing along the lines you suggest as soon as time permits and revert.

One more oddity just noticed.

Open the image, ask for OOG overlay.
Go into Color Settings and change the RGB working space. I have mine set for ProPhoto RGB but it doesn't appear to matter.
Result: Image updates and OOG overlay looks darker or lighter (no difference in size of OOG).
Turn OFF OOG and try again, toggle makes no visible difference on-screen. Only when OOG is on does altering RGB working space change the appearance, why?

[digitaldog]

Color Range> OOG is useless, it's using the CMYK profile selected in color settings, not the soft proof for doing it's thing. Shame. Be useful if Adobe would fix that, tie the profile selected in custom soft proof into the selection here.

[digitaldog]

I tried the technique outlined here for creating two adjustment layers:
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/taking-control-gamut-warnings.html

I'd suggest doing this non-destructively by adding two new image layers, each with a specific blending mode. First, hold down the Alt key (Option key on OS X) and click on the "new layer" icon at the bottom of the layers panel. In the resulting pop-up dialog, select a blending mode of "Soft Light" from the Mode dropdown. Click on the "Fill with Soft-Light neutral color (50% gray)" box that appears at the bottom of the window and then click on "OK." Then create another new layer with a blending mode of "Saturation." There is no neutral color for saturation so just leave this layer empty for now.With these two adjustment layers created, you can paint on one to darken, or paint on the other to destasturate. Set your brush to a low opacity black and paint as needed on the out-of-gamut color areas.

I didn't try to completely eliminate every OOG pixel and you can see the 'before and after' OOG here:



I then just used the ICC profile that produced the OOG overlay to convert to that color space using RelCol. The two versions are seen here:



One version took less than a second to complete, the other a couple of minutes and yes, I could have spent more time and done a more precise job. WHY?
At least on this end, the version converted to the profile looks much better to me.