Tutorial - Soft Proofing In Lightroom

[@GMWTravels]

Very useful video for me. I did not really understand the workflow before. Thankyou

[@ScottDavenport]

You are welcome!

[@mopunchstudio9289]

Scott I think this was the clearest explanation of these concepts, thank you.

[@ScottDavenport]

Great to hear!

[@parikshitmayur5870]

You saved my life. I accidentally had hit 'S' and almost couldn't get ride off the soft proofing tag. Found your video immensely helpful.

[@ScottDavenport]

Been there …. Glad it helped.

[@Gaensler]

Hey Scott, I was looking for a Soft Proof Tutorial for Lightroom and found yours. It had everything in it I was looking for and I wanted to thank you for providing it. I'm using Lightroom many years, but didn't do much printing. Thank you.

[@ScottDavenport]

Glad I could help, Kay. Have fun printing!

[@Sinth_Node]

Thank you Scott for your insight and tutorial! Ive been using Lightroom for years and had no idea about these settings. Very informative and super easy to follow. you just got one more loyal subscriber right here!

[@ScottDavenport]

Thanks a bunch, Spencer! Welcome to the community.

[@Jasman76]

Great Video! You do a wonderful job of anticipating questions viewers might have, at least for me you did. Thank you.

[@ScottDavenport]

Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!

[@rickdroz40]

Very good presentation. Thank you

[@ScottDavenport]

Glad it was helpful, Rick.

[@galupi20]

Great Tutorial !

[@ScottDavenport]

Glad you enjoyed it, Luis. Thanks for watching!

[@strivevisualsuk]

Great video. Do you increase the exposure to compensate for the back light?

[@ScottDavenport]

I presume you're referring to bright monitors vs. a print that isn't backlit (vs. a scene that's backlit).. I keep my monitor at about half brightness. I typically do not need to do general exposure work just for a print.

[@jamaicafox]

Thanks. This was helpful

[@ScottDavenport]

You’re very welcome, Asha.

[@travelwithravi6402]

Great Tutorial. Thanks for going through the process in detail. One question for you - At 6:40 you talk about pressing button S on the keyboard to toggle between the photo you adjusted for screen and soft proof of the photo. When I tried it, it seems like button S just toggles soft proofing to the image that has been already adjusted (contrast, clarity, vibrance, tone-curve) during the soft-proofing process, not the original photo that was adjusted for screen. Am I not hearing it correctly?

[@ScottDavenport]

Good catch, and you're correct. I misspoke there. Use the compare view to see the screen version against the proof version.

[@rickwisephotography]

Thanks Scott for doing a series on printing. This video was very helpful. Will you be doing a video on printing from ON1?

[@ScottDavenport]

Hi Rick... yes, I plan to do a soft proofing video for ON1. Buried in travel and other projects at the moment. It's on the roadmap.

[@nickyfoulkes8476]

Hi Scott here in the UK Fotospeed paper recommend perceptual intent for there papers,so it is worth checking that with the paper manufacturer.

[@ScottDavenport]

Interesting.. .thanks, Nicky. I hadn't encountered a lab thus far that wanted a specific setting.

[@harrykitch9239]

Scott, Good video and very helpful. If you are going to print from a lab, I assume you can use this same approach if you get the ICC profiles from the lab for their paper and printer?

[@ScottDavenport]

Hi Harry... precisely. There is nothing specific about the soft-proofing process to a particular profile. For a lab, grab and install their profiles (I have another video on installing profiles) and select that when you do the proofing.

[@marclabro]

really nice tuto. I didn't know how to use it properly. moreover i read several time not tu check simulate ink because buggy and always awful look,...(seemed buggy in old LR versions and improved recently ?) marc

[@ScottDavenport]

I haven’t had issues with it. When you saw “looks awful” I’m assuming you mean the final print. Soft proofing generally looks a bit sketchy on screen. The actual print looks better.

[@alanbrunelle1546]

I have seen others talk about reining the whites - that you shouldn't really push a photo w/ completely white bits (255/255/255) as that cause /no/ ink to be applied to the paper, where ever-so-slightly-non-pure-white looks better (as just a splotch of ink is used). Have you ever noticed that?

[@ScottDavenport]

Hi Alan... yes, that's true, glad you raised it. The tone of the paper may not be a pure white, and may look awkward depending on surrounding colors. There is a Photoshop action floating around in the ether that changes all 255/255/255 to 253/253/253 (or something like that).

[@mamabravo100]

what about sending a photo to a print lab?

[@ScottDavenport]

Same principle. Follow the advice of your print lab. If they have an ICC profile, you can download it and use it for soft proofing. Other labs just want a JPG with an RGB color space. Depends on where you print. I have another video showing some lab print prep with Saal Digital. www.scottdavenportphoto.com/printing-photos/

[@mamabravo100]

@@ScottDavenport Yup I did it! Finally Understand this! Thanks so much for posting this! Ive watched both videos! Thanks so much!

[@elmafudd9703]

To the gods of electromagnetic light I have a soft proofing conundrum, are you sitting comfortably? Now let me begin. Out of gamut was a best guess way back in the 90s that PS provided people so that they could visualise and view, the unprintable/non viewable Hues. (Both Photoshop and modern printers have evolved greatly since 1998 I believe and its introduction). With this best guess named gamut warning you could attempt adjustment the work to keep it as faithful as possible to the original. I believe that this method is legacy and was superseded by the more accuracy and modern ICC profiles. These profiles are specific to the printer and its relationship to the medium selected. So we should be adjusting the ICC rendered image and ignoring out of gamut witch (pun intended) is legacy and inaccurate. From my study we should not conflate the two. This is not a criticisms of any ones ideas or work flow I am just looking for knowledge and I am always happy with been proven wrong after all every day is a school day. If we use ICC and Gamut we are mistakenly combining two methods of image adjustment that should/must not be conflated. Lets say for the sake of this diatribe/conversation that all variables are fixed. For a moment exclude all the possible nuances and variations, Calibration, lumen output, kelvin on the monitor matches the kelvin output of your controlled viewing environment etc. Then the only variable which can affect the output is the ICC profile. Lets say this is our hypothetical fact to stop all the yes but replies. Keep with my mindless wanderings please. Now look at this situation in a practical way. If when I apply the ICC profile the profile provided by the wonder nerds who work on the specific printer and rock it to sleep every evening, the nerds who know which colour wire to cut to stop the end of time then the results displayed are as good as it can be for that set up. Give or take +/- a pinch of salt in the devils eye. Our image and request has pushed the printer to its limits with the added throttling of the chosen medium gloss paper acrylic glass etc. The algorithms have metamorphosed the brightest hues corralled all colour possibility into the new profile so that 100% red is still 100% red but in a different algorithm. In our idiotic and pretend world we can do know more to this perfectly colour calibrated image. We are looking at the best that that printer can do, with the request given a Tiff file in adobe RGB. Now let us say that we require to tweak this image as we know that transmissive light from the monitor will always be different to the reflective light of a print (we are back in the real world now) then these gentle adjustments should only be applied to the ICC profile to attempt to match the original. If we start toggling off/on the legacy and woefully judgemental and inaccurate Gamut warning in Photoshop CC then we are at serious risk of over egging the pudding. The ICC has brought the colour gamut in check already so why would there still be out of gamut colours when we toggle the gamut warning on and off. The only reason is its an old left over legacy and it should never be used in combination with ICC profiling. Does anyone else feel my pain or am I alone in this padded cell? The long and short of it is the ICC profile has brought all hue within gamut already so a gamut check Is not required. Now I am just a muppet on a string so if anyone can help me dance to a better tune then I am most ready if you are asking.