Printing and editing wide gamut images: working spaces, printer colour profiles and soft proofing

[@dunnymonster]

Absolutely spot on, you can spend hours fussing over colour accuracy but it means nothing if the image itself is terrible 😉

[@KeithCooper]

Yes - I wish more people 'teaching' about printing would make this point ;-)

[@kenh.5903]

as Ansel Adams said, "there is nothing worse than a sharp print of a fuzzy concept"

[@jimsturla]

Very helpful Keith. I’m fairly new at printing my work, and I find color management is such a subjective thing. There’s so much to learn when we jump into printing, and this demystified some things for me. Thanks for doing these kinds of videos.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks - do check the articles too on the Northlight site, many of the videos are here to augment the more comprehensive articles/reviews

[@olaforth2791]

Very helpful & informstive

[@ikicaq]

Great video Keith, thanks for sharing. My printing has improved a great deal since I've started focusing on the actual look of the print, not what it looks like on screen and trying to match it. Love these kinds of workflow videos. The only suggestion I would give is that you use screen recording so that we can have a better look at the image and your process. Thanks again.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks - glad they have been of help. I'll look to include a few more stills. I'm a bit wary of screen recording though since I'm trying to show the general principles of what I'm doing and why rather than a 'recipe' of adjustments for a particular unique image. In some ways the actual settings/values I use (along with my out of date software!) are things I don't want to include.

[@spacefdeviceweb]

Thanks Keith for your videos. You are practically the only one who shows actual prints from the printer I am interested in. ALso, I can see the different qualities of paper. The canson smooth looks great. I cannot find any information about the "'waterproof"' qualities of those inks, because I am looking to make prints that people will touch and manipulate, stuffd that companies make with eco-solvant inks, or laser usually. User will not put the prints into water, but fingers can be greasy and sneezing may output enough droplets to ruin the print (or not, that's what i am looking for as information).

[@KeithCooper]

There are media which are surprisingly robust. Some time ago I looked at a water resistant 'paper' www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-water-resistant-matte-paper-review/ (long long predates me doing videos)

[@michaelvandahl3766]

Hi Keith, reallly good explanation of the print process! Looking at the image I'm wondering that the background sky and the foreground leaves are well exposered. I imagine, looking at the image, that the camera dynamic rnage was not sufficient!? Did you light up parts o the image in post?

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks I almost always adjust images a bit when processing the RAW files to get the tonality I want. However, this was at altitude, so that blue is very deep - such an image needs careful attention to noise levels as well The camera (a 2007 1Ds mk3) was perfectly fine :-) The image was exposed to limit any clipping of the highlights in the leaves - partly why I almost always use fully manual exposure.

[@francescobutano2778]

thanks for this great video! Do you use ColorThink in your workflow to evaluate which paper/printer combination best suite the gamut of a picture?

[@KeithCooper]

I don't use it - I do it purely visually. Whilst programs such as colorthink can be very useful in press and pre-press work, they need a lot of experience and knowledge to make effective use of the numbers. They are not (IMHO) something for a photographer like myself just wanting to make great looking prints. Colorthink is just not software that I'd pay for for use in that area of printing.

[@gonzphotographymusicchanne2855]

Loving your vids Keith they truly are great and have been great help , i have a Canon Pro 100s printer and at the moment im looking for a better monitor as the one i have is an old TN panal, my budget is between 400 and 500 euro and was wondering is it best for me to go with the widest display gamut monitor for the budget i have lets say 100% sRGB‚100% Rec.709 ?, would this spec monitor give me good prints once calibrated of course, thank you Keith.

[@KeithCooper]

Glad they are of help! 100% sRGB is not particularly wide by modern standards, but my Apple Cinema HD monitor I used up until 7-8 years ago was sRGB and I made some great prints. Editing in Adobe 98 you have the same (potential) issues as you would using prophoto on the (A98) BenQ here - not too big a problem, you just need to be careful as to the different gamuts involved. Part of my aim with this video - picking the big spaces, was to draw parallels with using smaller spaces. Calibration will definitely help and of course the real issue is the underlaying quality of the photos ;-)

[@gonzphotographymusicchanne2855]

@@KeithCooper Thank you so much Keith for your reply, your a gentleman thank you again.

[@StevenFinlayGB]

Excellent explanation. Thanks.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks

[@fredwestinghouse2945]

On purpose, I have over-saturated a photo in Photoshop. Looks great on screen. I turn on softproofing - gosh, the image looks terrible - very dull looking. My fear is, if I print the photo, the end result will be equally dull. Bar doing small test print and checking the results, is there anything else I can do in Photoshop to try and get the colours as colourful as possible when I print it.

[@KeithCooper]

Well, paper choice and profiling make a big difference. Soft proofing should (IMHO) be used sparingly and in conjunction with experience of the media. The screen is not the print - your soft proofing suggests that what you are displaying is simply not reproducible on paper in the form you want... The only way of really seeing is to do a small test print - perhaps of a section of the image. This is also why I use printer test images so much - they give me a feel for what the printer/paper/ink is capable of. Expecting bright colourful images to print perfectly on paper is doomed to failure without testing to establish what is actually possible. You want the image on the screen? - print on backlit film and put it on a lightbox... ;-) See here for more www.northlight-images.co.uk/a-photo-print-of-some-bright-red-flowers/

[@fredwestinghouse2945]

You are right about the paper (Hahnemühle Gloss Baryta 320) not being able to handle such overly-saturated colours. I will do small test "patch" prints and see how much I can push the colours. By the way, from your testing over the years, what glossy paper handles over-saturated photos the best - available from UK sellers?

[@KeithCooper]

No easy way to say - it varies so much by printer ink set and printer Have a look at this one - I use it for some specific 'colourful' prints www.northlight-images.co.uk/permajet-titanium-gloss-300-metallic/ That said, I simply don't print on glossy papers for my own (large print) use, so I've never really pushed the boundaries of this area.

[@fredwestinghouse2945]

A follow up. Both the softproofing and the image in Epson Print Layout looked terrible. I did a small patch print. It looked good. So, bit the bullet and printed the whole photo. Final print was great. So the lesson is, softproofing can be useful, but actual print is the real deal.

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks for noting that. It really is one of the reasons I rail against the habitual use of soft proofing, which seems to have been accepted as one of the new orthodoxies ;-) One problem is that soft proofing, on a carefully and properly set up monitor (in the right viewing conditions) can be very effective. However very few people go to all this trouble and effort, when it's easy to hit a 'soft proof' button and see some change in the view on the screen. I have a big printer coming to test (24" P7500) so hope to be able to come back to this one!

[@alanwilliams8317]

Thanks!

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks!

[@messylaura]

Hi Keith, when learning colour management with regard to printing accurate colours would it be advantageous to use a colour checker at the time of taking the image so when you are back hoe at the computer printing out tests for colour accuracy you have something that was at the scene to adjust to, ie if you think the yellows are off then you can tell more accurately in you have the same colour checker in your hands? though i'm not ready quite yet to start in the print world as i can see there is alot to learn i was wondering if you do coarses on the aspects of printing i'm currently using a mac book pro 2015 and photoshop 5, its something i really don't want to give up but i'm running mac os el capitan and alot of my apps are moving away from that os,

[@KeithCooper]

Ah - you're looking at what is effectively 'camera profiling'. I do it occasionally with my industrial work, where there is unusual or mixed lighting in a factory. I don't use it much in normal lighting. See here for some examples www.northlight-images.co.uk/dual-illuminant-dng-profiles/ Such profiling is covered in several of my lighting related articles www.northlight-images.co.uk/category/articles-and-reviews/lighting/ I've not done a video about this - I'll add it to the list (my videos date back less than 2 years, my articles nearly 20) However, for many prints, good colour beats 'accurate' colour... My own laptop (as sometimes seen in my videos is a 2010 MBP running Photoshop CS6. on 10.13. Unlikely to be updated for a while... I can cover all of this stuff (and much more!) in our on-site commercial training in the UK www.northlight-images.co.uk/commercial-photography/training/product-photography-training/ I don't do on-line training I'm afraid (I just don't like doing it)

[@ruudmaas2480]

I use a Fuji x-system for Landscape and woodland photiography. I use Capture One for processing and Affinity Pro Photo for printing my Photographs on a cheap Canon Pixmia IP 8750 printer (A3+) (possibilities for proofing the print an changing the layout on papper). For time reasons I did setup my Fuji x system and Capture ONe in the SRGB color space. So when publishing on the WEB i do not have the change (besides the layout) the photograph. Next to that I shoot some amount of Infrared photographs that I process to Black and White Photographs. My question is about the color management. What do I realy loose by setting the complete workflow in the SRGB-color space and not in the color space of ADOBE 1998? Will it show more when using a more expensive printer having more inks (dey or pigment based)? At this moment I use 2 papers of Canon (glossy II and semi gloss, the semi gloss i prefer the most). Reason is that for the Pixmia 8750 there only a few printer profiles free avalable.

[@KeithCooper]

sRGB can quite curtail the colour range which you can get in printing. However, it will work and is the easy solution. I would suggest getting a printer test image (such as the datacolor one I keep on the Northlight site) which is is in A98. www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/ Print this and then convert it to sRGB and print that. If you can see a difference, your print setup will benefit from a wider gamut - if there's no real difference then stick with what works for you. A better printer and a98 workflow should easily show some differences

[@ruudmaas2480]

@@KeithCooper Thanks for you reaction. I will look into it.

[@athilesh2095]

What about cmyk offset printing

[@KeithCooper]

What about it? Not a subject I cover at all in any of my videos ;-)

[@KeithCooper]

This is my standard suggested reading for people asking me about this... Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting 978-0321267221 Widely available 2nd hand

[@drwatsonismine]

How long do inkjet paper last? I have boxes that are about 3 years old? Just wondering.

[@KeithCooper]

I have a few boxes/packs in our print room over 10 years old and have no problem in using them.

[@rogerwalton8160]

Very useful - thank you!

[@KeithCooper]

Thanks - glad it was of interest.

[@adamrubinstein1479]

I may be misunderstanding your intent though you seem to be suggesting not to edit in Pro Photo and chose aRGB instead. For many printers whose gamut exceeds beyond aRGB, this strategy would not take advantage of the entire color range available to the user. The only time I employ a smaller gamut is when color control of specific tones is critical, such as skin tones or posting to the web.

[@KeithCooper]

Actually I do regularly suggest using A98 over ProPhoto. The visible advantages of a larger space beyond what can be seen on a wide gamut monitor are infrequent in real imagery and with much printing. The only time I always use ProPhoto 16 bit is for subsequent conversion to B&W. Using the 'whole gamut' is fine for those who appreciate the potential pitfalls of very large spaces and ways of working round or with them. However, it is a regular cause of confusion and trouble for those starting out. Far simpler to work on getting great looking prints and photos and address the subtleties and fine points later on when experience and knowledge helps put things in context. The example image I used here was one of the few I have that reliably shows the difference the large space gives. I should note that had I used A98 and edited/printed it optimally, I doubt many would ever notice, even if I put the two prints next to each other - for me the aim is a good looking print, not necessarily any notional accuracy. The majority of my commercial work and printmaking is done in A98, with a monitor of sufficiently wide gamut. Whilst larger colour spaces can definitely have their uses, I'm a great believer in keeping things simpler to start with. I've seen too many examples of people getting caught up in the weeds and minutiae of colour management and missing the (litteral) big picture. There is sometimes rather too much of 'the proper way' in some of what I see written about colour management, this treats it as an end in itself rather than a tool for helping in making great photos and prints.

[@bbowles3]

For fine art papers does the canon 1000 excel over epson p900/p700?

[@KeithCooper]

It depends... ...on the profile, the type of paper, the type of image and the skill of the printer Sorry there is no meaningful short answer to this ;-)

[@bbowles3]

@@KeithCooper thanks, but let’s assume we are talking about fine art paper (cotton paper) and infinite skill of the photographer. The canon has more inks therefore I’d expect it to have a slight edge in gamut in certain situations. And we are further restricting our thinking to reds specifically.. what about in this case?

[@KeithCooper]

Ah, in that case you need to analyse ICC profiles for individual papers and see what differences there are. Of course, gamut envelopes from profiles only give hints and say nothing about how colours and tone gradations differ. There is also the issue that the optimal paper for one printer may not be the optimal paper for the other. More inks only automatically equate with larger gamuts in printer marketing materials ;-) My own feeling is that few people could spot the differences and then only with specific test images and a direct comparison under careful test conditions. Even then, if the prints were not labelled I'd wager that many would not be able to repeat the test if carried out the following day ;-) Both P900 and PRO-1000 are capable of excellent prints - differences are many, but as with many modern printers, relatively few of these are in what gets called 'quality' So, to answer your original question, no, the 1000 does not excel over the 7/900 in this respect ;-)

[@bbowles3]

Thank you for your response. Reason being is that I really enjoy macro photography with bright reds, pinks, purples which often get out of gamut on my current printer which is really quite good (XP 15000). At least one article I read comparing the two gamut’s suggests the canon has a slight edge in the reds.

[@bbowles3]

Often I use the perceptual rendering intent to bring the colors into gamut. But because I’m into these subtle gradations of intense color the gamut can be a factor for me even though for most images it doesn’t matter.