printing from Lightroom vs Print Tool

[Eric Brody]

I read often about how printing from Lightroom is superior to printing from Photoshop; both Jeff Schewe and Andrew Rodney have written this.

I've been printing for a long time with various Epson printers, currently a 3880. It's worked flawlessly since 2013. I understand why some people refer to it as Epson's most reliable 17" printer... ever.

My most recent workflow has been to use Roy Harrington's Print Tool program and it has worked well. I use his Quadtone RIP for my monochrome images. I use the preset curves base on papers and have not made my own curves.

I prepare the image for printing by duplicating it, flattening it, sizing it, converting it from Pro Photo RGB to Adobe RGB, putting it through Focus Magic sharpening (wonderful program, thanks Charley Cramer), and saving it to my desktop as a PRINT file. In Print Tool, I set everything up, import the PRINT file, and print.

Is there any advantage in saving the PRINT file to Lightroom (I discard these PRINT files after I've made the prints) and then printing from Lightroom vs just printing from Print Tool? I don't mind the extra step if it will improve print quality.

I've tried it both ways and cannot seem to see any differences in the print. I'd rather make images and print them than spend time, paper and ink over indistinguishable differences.

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

[digitaldog]

I read often about how printing from Lightroom is superior to printing from Photoshop; both Jeff Schewe and Andrew Rodney have written this.

Nope. Not if all parameters are equal. Add capture and output sharpening which is an option, then yes. Add interpolation then yes, that is also possible.
The workflow for some of us is superior. The actual output depends on many factors. If LR and PS are equally configured, there is no difference.

[Chris Kern]

I prepare the image for printing by duplicating it, flattening it, sizing it, converting it from Pro Photo RGB to Adobe RGB, putting it through Focus Magic sharpening (wonderful program, thanks Charley Cramer), and saving it to my desktop as a PRINT file. In Print Tool, I set everything up, import the PRINT file, and print. . . .

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

Sounds awfully complicated to me.  Have you tried simply adjusting the raw file in Lightroom (i.e., with "parametric" edits), soft-proofing in Lightroom, and printing from Lightroom?  I'd be surprised if your color-space manipulation, external sharpening, and intermediate rendering prior to printing really are making much of a difference in the final appearance of the print.

[digitaldog]

converting it from Pro Photo RGB to Adobe RGB

Utterly pointless to do this. And a good way to clip colors that you can print.