To Soft Proof or Not – Always On?

AS
Posted By
Alan Smithee
Sep 22, 2005
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373
Replies
9
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Closed
Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

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Bill Hilton
Sep 22, 2005
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

Bill
MR
Mike Russell
Sep 22, 2005
"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

Good comments, once again, from Bill Hilton.

I would add that soft proofing, with paper white selected, generally gives a dull looking image that is almost unbearable to look at.

If you are seeing a great deviation in the form of a color cast between your normal view and the soft proof, you may have an underlying problem with your color set up, such as a monitor profiling problem that is being compensated by the soft proof.

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
AS
Alan Smithee
Sep 23, 2005
Bill Hilton wrote:
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

Bill

What I was finding was that my printer output (Epson R300) was coming out with way too much contrast when I printed colourized black & white images, the highlights were getting blown out. Then I "discovered" the soft proof function and soon as I turned it on with my paper profile I saw the same blown out highlights. So I’m wondering why don’t I just edit until it looks good with soft proofing turned on. I like your idea about using layer though. I’m going to give that a try.
AS
Alan Smithee
Sep 23, 2005
Mike Russell wrote:
"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

Good comments, once again, from Bill Hilton.

I would add that soft proofing, with paper white selected, generally gives a dull looking image that is almost unbearable to look at.
If you are seeing a great deviation in the form of a color cast between your normal view and the soft proof, you may have an underlying problem with your color set up, such as a monitor profiling problem that is being compensated by the soft proof.

My monitor is calibrated with an Eye-One. I’ll check out the Paper White setting though. Maybe I need to do some more readin’. The devil’s in the details. Thx. guys.
J
JJSrock
Sep 23, 2005
Bill Hilton wrote:
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

What Bill describes is the classic workflow. I uses single printer+paper+ink, and find that soft proofing on a calibrated monitor with a profile can look quite different with certain images. With that kind of images, I would soft proof (and sometimes print) incrementally after major edits during my workflow. This lets me catch potential printing problems caused by the edits further upstream.
J
JJSrock
Sep 23, 2005
Alan Smithee wrote:
Mike Russell wrote:
"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

Good comments, once again, from Bill Hilton.

I would add that soft proofing, with paper white selected, generally gives a dull looking image that is almost unbearable to look at.
If you are seeing a great deviation in the form of a color cast between your normal view and the soft proof, you may have an underlying problem with your color set up, such as a monitor profiling problem that is being compensated by the soft proof.

My monitor is calibrated with an Eye-One. I’ll check out the Paper White setting though. Maybe I need to do some more readin’. The devil’s in the details. Thx. guys.

The Paper White setting only affects how a soft proof looks, but does not affect how a print looks. What affects the looks of BOTH a soft proof and a print are the rendering intents (which most good books spend a fair amount of ink on), and Black Point Compensation (which most books don’t explain well).

The number of combination permutations is quite staggering.
RF
Robert Feinman
Sep 23, 2005
In article ,
says…
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

Bill
If your objective is to make the best print that you can, then I don’t see anything wrong with this workflow. I discuss this option in one of the tips on my web site.

If you may want to reprint later with a different setup then keeping the printer specific edits in layers may be a good option. Another is just to save several versions of the file.


Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail:
AS
Alan Smithee
Sep 23, 2005
wrote:
Bill Hilton wrote:
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

What Bill describes is the classic workflow. I uses single printer+paper+ink, and find that soft proofing on a calibrated monitor with a profile can look quite different with certain images. With that kind of images, I would soft proof (and sometimes print) incrementally after major edits during my workflow. This lets me catch potential printing problems caused by the edits further upstream.

Do you yourself in your own workflow use pre-made paper profiles or do you use the printer driver to tweak your colours/photos?
J
JJSrock
Sep 24, 2005
Alan Smithee wrote:
wrote:
Bill Hilton wrote:
Alan Smithee writes …

Should I always have soft proofing turned on. If I’m outputting to an inkjet, say to photo glossy paper, and I have a profile for this paper shouldn’t I just edit my image until it looks good under the soft proofing option?

This would make sense if and only if you are going to *always* print on just one type of paper and the profile is very accurate. The classic example is the pre-press pro who scans and then edits for one specific CMYK printer.

I think a better workflow for most of us using inkjets and Chromira or Lightjet class lasers is to make your basic edits without soft proofing until the image looks "right", then turn on soft proofing and if it’s necessary to make paper profile-specific edits then do them as adjustment layers in a layer set with a set name like, say, "Epson4000-ehn matte" or whatever. You can even open two windows of the same image with and without soft proofing turned on so you can tweak the soft proofed image to match as closely as possible the unproofed image.

The advantages of this workflow is that you don’t make too many edits to the base image and you can have multiple layer sets for multiple paper types or profiles, turning on only the one you need for a specific printer.

What Bill describes is the classic workflow. I uses single printer+paper+ink, and find that soft proofing on a calibrated monitor with a profile can look quite different with certain images. With that kind of images, I would soft proof (and sometimes print) incrementally after major edits during my workflow. This lets me catch potential printing problems caused by the edits further upstream.

Do you yourself in your own workflow use pre-made paper profiles or do you use the printer driver to tweak your colours/photos?

I use profiles available on the Net, either from the media vendors or from people like Bill Atkinson. For my ink+paper, I collect a set of profiles that are intended for them or for something close. For an image, I would soft proof with these profiles with different intents and with Black Point Compensation on and off. (The permutations get bigger with each additional profile.) I then make a few test prints based on the best looking proofs. From the test prints, I select the best and make the final print. I use No Color Management at the Epson driver and do not tweak the colors there. Any tweaking is done on an adjustment layer as described by Bill. Then I go through the same soft proof and test print cycle again. YUK!

Definitely not what you would call a speedy workflow. For my set up, soft proofing will change how an image looks, so will the test prints. Perhaps I’m not as lucky as those who claim that they can see no differences. My theory is that Epson purposely make bad profiles so that they can sell more ink and paper to customers like myself.

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