Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/10/10

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Subject: [Leica] LR4 Soft Proofing
From: kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:30:05 -0700
References: <C9E60F39-3530-480E-AF86-F25B565B2A76@acm.org> <CAF8hL-E+8GD1Xyj0VSL8ZE9-=abkx2pCW1DWv0NBk_UyfOSiVg@mail.gmail.com> <CAE3QcF7xY2d9ax43ak9G4jSP1CZP4wVd2hWN0z+x+g5x9idU2Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hi, Jeff. You helped me once before with regard to avoiding the importing of 
duplicates. I seem to specialize in overlooking items near the top of the 
r.h. panel of LR, as I failed to notice the appearance of a print profile 
pop-up when I checked marked the soft proofing check box. Richard Man 
pointed that out.

So I tried an experiment. My monitor is an iMac calibrated with a Spyder 
Express. My printer is pretty good, though not to professional standards: an 
Epson Artisan 50. For this relatively inexpensive printer, Epson provides 
profiles only for Epson papers. 

My experiment was to print the picture of the orchids that I posted last 
week as a Friday Flower. First I established, as expected, that there was no 
discernible difference between telling the LR print module to use 16 bits or 
8 bits. Then I compare Perceptual to Relative. The orchids had a slight bit 
more red in their purple hue in the Perceptual case. I then soft proofed. A 
few bits of the green and all of the orchid petals were marked as out of 
gamut. Small changes in purple hue did not help the petals. A small 
reduction in saturation put everything in gamut and when printed, the petals 
looked paler, the green looked unchanged.

Then, I decided to compare the prints to the picture on the monitor. The 
prints were viewed under an LED light. I now decided it's time to throw in 
the sponge. While the difference between Perceptual and Relative, for this 
picture, was extremely subtle, the purple on the prints was clearly much 
more red than that on the screen. Strangely, all the background colors: 
wall, furniture, air inlet grate matched quite closely between monitor and 
screen, and, in general, I've felt in the past that my prints pretty well 
matched the monitor.

C'est la vie.


Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.




On Oct 10, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Geoff Hopkinson wrote:

> And you need to have created and installed those profiles from elsewhere
> before you can select them for printing or soft proofing. Those may be the
> 'canned 'profiles from the paper manufacturers or custom profiles.
> Notice the perceived difference when a 'white' border is displayed in that
> soft proof mode though.
> 
> Actually the new LR changes effectively duplicate Photoshop's printing
> capabilities with more smarts added (resolution and colour space background
> automation for two).
> With most monitors in any case the luminance and contrast will not echo
> well what the print displays (not even considering the transmissive vs.
> reflective conditions). Few monitors can cover more than sRGB as well but
> good inkjets can approach AdobeRGB.
> A print on good Photorag might have a contrast ratio of maybe 150:1
> compared to maybe 10000 :1 of a common LCD screen.
> 
> High end monitors like the best Eizos and NECs confer a lot of advantages,
> including in these areas but maybe that is another conversation.
> 
> Cheers,
> Geoff
> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman
> 
> 
> 
> On 11 October 2012 06:39, Richard Man <richard at richardmanphoto.com> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Herb, on the upper right of the Develop panel, if you enable "Soft
>> Proofing," it has "Create Proof" and you can select which profile you are
>> soft proofing. Most of the time, you would select your paper/printer
>> combination that you are printing on.
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Even after seeing Adobe's tutorial on the subject, I'm really puzzled.
>>> Allegedly, Soft Proofing is supposed to show you areas of a picture that
>>> are "out of gamut" and enable you to make minimal changes in hue or
>>> saturation to put those areas back into gamut. But doesn't gamut depend
>> on
>>> media? That is, doesn't the gamut that can be presented depend, e.g. on
>> the
>>> printer/paper combination or the limitations of a monitor?
>>> 
>>> Since I'm viewing the picture on a monitor, what I get to see is, by
>>> definition, in gamut. Just for fun, I clicked the Soft Proofing box on
>> the
>>> recent picture of some orchids, The blossoms were indicated to be "out of
>>> gamut" and went into gamut after I reduced the saturation to the extent
>>> that they were pale ghosts of their former beauty.
>>> 
>>> The Soft Proofing option is in the Develop Module, which, to my
>> knowledge,
>>> has no way of specifying the profile of a printer/paper combination. I
>>> can't image how one would effectively use Soft Proofing.
>>> 
>>> Herbert Kanner
>>> kanner at acm.org
>>> 650-326-8204
>>> 
>>> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> // richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



Replies: Reply from hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson) ([Leica] LR4 Soft Proofing)
In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] LR4 Soft Proofing)
Message from richard at richardmanphoto.com (Richard Man) ([Leica] LR4 Soft Proofing)
Message from hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson) ([Leica] LR4 Soft Proofing)