Soft Proofing in Photoshop and Lightroom - Does it Really predict how your prints will Look Like?

[jtoolman]

I know that many of you soft proof and swear by it. Some swear at it! I tend to be at the middle on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JakcrF43Uj4

Joe

 

[palombian]

Joe, the examples you show are indeed out of whack, but IMO with "normal" photos soft proofing helps to verify you have the right profile.
I always use perceptual.
With my "good" profiles I see nearly any difference on the screen when clicking the proof button.
And when the print with the profile is bad, it is bad on the screen too.

PS: I have a nasty problem profiling my Canon 5 cartridge dye printers, will start a thread when I have some clues.

 

[jtoolman]

You have to realize that in the actual images part of that special standard image, you hardly saw any changes. Only on the hugely out of gamut color patches which purposely a part of that standard image. Just so you know, the profiles I used where the actual Canon PRO -100 Pro Luster and one OEM canon profile for the 9500MKII that are included in the driver. So no they are not out of whack! On normal, everyday images the differences between Soft Proof and direct viewing are very minimal. I think I showed that. Again, the big differences seen when only on the super saturated out of gamut colors that are PURPOSELY included on that standard image. You simply can not print those values with just about any printer. The profiles do show that fact during soft proofing.

Joe

 

[jtoolman]

Joe, the examples you show are indeed out of whack, but IMO with "normal" photos soft proofing helps to verify you have the right profile.
I always use perceptual.
With my "good" profiles I see nearly any difference on the screen when clicking the proof button.
And when the print with the profile is bad, it is bad on the screen too.

PS: I have a nasty problem profiling my Canon 5 cartridge dye printers, will start a thread when I have some clues.

Go ahead and use my Standard Image and see how they work with it.
Joe
http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you should keep some attention to an effect in the back of your mind that the display gamut and the printer gamut don't overlap completely, it could be that some section of the printer gamut is out of the display gamut. The soft proof function could show you those image colors out of the printer gamut but not those which are already out of display gamut. All this depends very much on the gamut of the display - they can vary very much in size from the typical standard monitors to the newer wide gamut units even when all are properly calibrated.

 

[Emulator]

Has anyone got thoughts on which is the best buy for sensibly priced wide gamut displays currently on the market?

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Has anyone got thoughts on which is the best buy for sensibly priced wide gamut displays currently on the market?

I bought the Dell 2413U couple of years ago for a ridiculously low price on a special offer. Forget exact amount but somewhere in the region if C$450.

At the time Dell appeared to have some manufacturing problems with their wide gamut panels. I was probably lucky and got a trouble free one.

Certain not an Eizo or a NEC, but I am well pleased with it at that price point.

I have not kept up with their product line, and certainly things are sometimes different in Europe, but I think they are worth investigating.

rs

 

[palombian]

Go ahead and use my Standard Image and see how they work with it.
Joe
http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html

Thanks Joe

As expected 1/3 of the "special" colors have an out of gamut warning on my EIZO 2336 97% sRGB screen and 2/3 of them on my PRO9500 (10 ink) and MG8250 (6 ink) printers.

With the profile I made with the ColorMunki for the (5 ink) IX6550 on Aldi glossy even half of the "normal" colors are out of gamut.
The strange thing is 5 of the 6 inks are the same between the IX6550 and the MG8250, the latter has a only grey added.
How can grey ink expand the gamut in the yellow direction (as seen between the birch trees upper row 3th image) ?

As far as I see the prints with the 3 printers and the profiles I made reflect what I see on the monitor, and the soft proof shows practically no difference, so as an amateur I consider the ColorMunki a good tool.

Can I continue my life in the sRGB world ?
Why should I buy a wide gamut monitor since my (sold as professional) printers can't print the colors and 99,9% of the time my photos are seen on laptops and smartphones worse than my screen ?
Am I shut out of a part of the reality ?
From my childhood doctors told me I was color blind, so I was shut out from some professions, but later tests for my aviation medical showed I miss only a teeny bit in the green.
Or did nobody had the courage to say my photographs have weird colors ?

 

[Emulator]

If you follow the procedures for the display and printer profiling with the ColorMunki, you should end up with good profiles and images irrespective of personal colour judgement!

DispcalGUI is well worth trying as the display calibrator with the Colormunki, if you are into ArgyllCMS. It takes longer over the profiling but provides a great deal of additional calibration information.

 

[mikling]

I don't think I've posted this before BUT a long long time ago I got schooled by this article. Bruce Fraser one of the authors of the article passed away nearly ten years ago. So that gives you an idea of the depth of knowledge he had about imaging waaay back.

http://www.pixelgenius.com/tips/fraser-softproofing.pdf