Proper use of printer profiles...

[DavidGregg]

Question. I am going to try a local Costco to print some images. They recommended I download the profile for their Noritsu printer which I have done.

They then document how to prep your images before bringing them in and of course instruct you to tell the printing folks not to do any color correction. Fine.

Now, the document here says to use Photoshop and "convert to profile". Now between that and the "view proof" option, compared to a normal image as brought into Photoshop using sRGB, ProPhoto, etc... profiles, the image looks s little darker, much flatter and shows some color banding.

Questions:
1) How do you get the the vibrancy back?
2) Using the view proof option, is it a pretty accurate portrayal of what you should expect at the printer?
3) Again using the view proof option, clicking the "simulate paper" makes a big difference. is that really an accurate portrayal?

Finally, should one convert to profile (a print profile), then fine tune color, saturation, curves, etc... Any pointers would be appreciated.

[zagiace]

Originally Posted by DavidGregg

Questions:
1) How do you get the the vibrancy back?

If you are losing too much information you may have some issue in your conversion process.
I admit I did not read the entire attachment but if you could describe exactly what you are doing it should be pretty easy to troubleshoot.

Originally Posted by DavidGregg

2) Using the view proof option, is it a pretty accurate portrayal of what you should expect at the printer?

It is only as accurate as your particular situation will allow.
Things that will affect the accuracy of your color management process are,

Your monitor
Accuracy of your monitor profile
Warm up period
Age of the monitor
Quality of your monitor
Colorspace you are viewing (As an example most monitors cannot display the full gamut of AdobeRGB)

Printer Profile
difference between Generic profiles supplied by manufacturers and custom made
General Quality of the printer profile.
Consistency of the printing process (chemistry, paper emulsions, ink)

Ambient lighting

Originally Posted by DavidGregg

3) Again using the view proof option, clicking the "simulate paper" makes a big difference. is that really an accurate portrayal?

I am not as sure about this however I think it is more accurate when you are using a measured white point from the paper used.

[ohenry]

Use the printer profile for soft proofing only. Do not convert to the printer profile as that is not a color space...it's a printer profile. When the article said to convert to the appropriate profile, they mean aRGB or sRGB as the printer requests. Some machines do not read embedded color spaces and sRGB will be the proper choice. Others can read color spaces and you can pretty much use whatever you want (aRGB or sRGB is still probably safest as wider color spaces will likely exceed what the printer can handle). The lab instructions should tell you which space they prefer or need.

When I soft proof, I make adjustments while viewing the softproofed version.I find it helpful to create a duplicate copy of my adjusted original so that one is being soft proofed and the other is not. That way you can bounce back and forth between the two as you adjust the version that you'll ultimately submit to the printer.