Printing a profile in LR4

[IWC Doppel]

Hi guys,

I have the LuLa videos for LR4 and screen to print but cant seem to find the helpful section showing how to print without using a profile so I can send away to have a profile made. Can any one help !

Tks

[Mark D Segal]

Go to the Adobe website, download the free Adobe Color Print Utility, designed specifically for printing profiling targets, follow the instructions for using that application and the instructions from your profile provider for printing the target and you should be fine.

[IWC Doppel]

Thanks

[digitaldog]

On top of the issue that LR can't print without color management, it's kind of difficult to print some images at 100% without trial and error.

I was able to get a two page target for the iSis to print pretty darn close to 100% in the Book module, once I figured out it needed to be set at 104%. It measures fine once torn out of the book.

[Schewe]

I was able to get a two page target for the iSis to print pretty darn close to 100% in the Book module, once I figured out it needed to be set at 104%. It measures fine once torn out of the book.

Ah...so you profiled Blurb from the Book module? Any interesting results you can share?

[digitaldog]

Just trying to build an RGB soft proof profile and no, I haven't done anything with it yet.

[MarkH2]

On top of the issue that LR can't print without color management...

Andrew,

Can't you print without color management in LR by setting the color management profile to the color profile of the source image (e.g., sRGB)?  Since the two profiles are equal LR should make no changes to the RGB values, right?

I do this for printing ink purge patches.  I have no experience with printing targets for profiling a printer, so I do not fully understand the problem.  Just seems you could assign a profile in PS, then print using that same profile in LR.

Mark

[digitaldog]

Can't you print without color management in LR by setting the color management profile to the color profile of the source image (e.g., sRGB)? 

Not reliably.

[MarkH2]

Not reliably.

Because LR cannot be depended upon to leave all pixels unchanged?  Or some other reason? 

Not just idle curiosity.  Might affect my workflow when using outside labs for printing.

Thanks.

[digitaldog]

It's a moving target and OS X keeps doing different things depending on the version. We got locked out of this in Photoshop CS6 and it could happen in LR too (maybe it should).

[MarkH2]

TY.  I hope color management can be kept transparent.  Seems all the new (mobile) devices drive vendors to cheaper lowest-common-denominator solutions.  Consider color management in TV.  Not economically necessary, when it's already "good enough" and sells and we chromatically adapt to the large screen.

[IWC Doppel]

I did manage this, so my two current matt papers are off for free icc's from fotospeed 

I have built acceptable ABW profiles as most I print are B&W, I did this avoiding any softproofing (say using with VFA as the softproof paper) as it looks way to flat and washed out in comparison to what I actually get. I have a lot of Keith cooper test prints lying around !

[John Caldwell]

While I heartily reinforce the suggestion of the using the free Adobe Color Print Utility for targets, what about printing from LR with "Printer Manages Colors" and turning "Color Management Off" in the printer driver? Is this not equivalent to what the Adobe Color Print Utility does (image size not withstanding)? Asking only to tighten up my understanding of the process.

[Mark D Segal]

One would think so, but it is not reliable - not clear what the colour management system may still be doing doing under the hood. This is the main reason why the ACPU was developed.

[mac_paolo]

I was able to get a two page target for the iSis to print pretty darn close to 100% in the Book module, once I figured out it needed to be set at 104%. It measures fine once torn out of the book.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, since Blurb is the commercial name for a number of different labs with different printers which all respect a sort of "standard", what's really the point in trying to perfectly profile the specific output of a specific (yet unknown) lab?
Just asking…

[digitaldog]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, since Blurb is the commercial name for a number of different labs with different printers which all respect a sort of "standard", what's really the point in trying to perfectly profile the specific output of a specific (yet unknown) lab?
Just asking…

I can't answer that. If I were to send the books to the company many times over a span of weeks or months, I could get a really good idea how close each press and the overall process control is (within reason from someone trying to do this from the outside. From the inside, I could gather very exacting info).

I can tell you this: I had one book printed from Lightroom just after version 4 was released. It was pretty awful. I sent another book (same images) a couple weeks ago, the output was much better! So I don't have a lot of faith in Blurb's QC and process control but keep in mind, we're talking about two samples over a course of about a year.

Lastly, I'm not trying to make a profile to do anything but soft proof! The target inserted in the book was RGB such that it would move through the entire process (from LR, to whatever RIP or front end Blurb uses from LR, through the press). My idea was to build an RGB profile only for soft proofing in LR. I can't convert to CMYK for Blurb nor would I until I had control over what gets sent, in CMYK to lots and lots of presses, with lots of different targets after seeing how far the dE values vary for each press and after averaging the 'good' data. Then I'd monitor the CMYK process by sending the targets again to these presses over time and comparing those measurements against what the profile predicts (the reference).

[mac_paolo]

Ok, thanks.

[NikoJorj]

One would think so, but it is not reliable - not clear what the colour management system may still be doing doing under the hood. This is the main reason why the ACPU was developed.

Is your answer only referring to MacOS, or does it also includes Windows (namely Win7)?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Is your answer only referring to MacOS, or does it also includes Windows (namely Win7)?

The only way to know for sure is to print a set of patches from both LR4 (using printer manages color) and ACPU and make the corresponding measurements to see if they are the same.  While this is certainly not a priority for me, I'll try to do just this when I have some spare time to do this.  It's easy to do running ArgyllCMS as the data can be exported to Excel and then analyzed quickly.

alan

[Mark D Segal]

Nicolas, what Alan just outlined above makes sense to answer your question definitively. That said, as I no longer use a Windows operating system and have lost interest in Windows operating systems I don't know the answer a priori. However, as Adobe made this ACPU especially for the purpose of printing profiling targets in both operating systems, why not just use it. It's free and simple and works.