Today I will show you how to soft proof your images using Adobe Photoshop. Why is soft proofing important? Simply put, soft proofing your images before having them printed is a great way to simulate how they will appear based on the specific printer and paper combination. In the long run it will save you both time and money.
This tutorial is designed to give you a crash course in the process of soft proofing, but remember, soft proofing is done using a computer monitor which has a much wider color gamut than do printers. Soft proofing can never guarantee your print will be exactly like the image your looking at on screen, but it can help you come as close to it as possible.
But before getting started, it is important that you do two things:
The first is to make sure your monitor is calibrated. Once you initially calibrate, be prepared to re - calibrate at least once a month. My experience with The Spyder Series by Datacolor has been excellent, but there are plenty of others to choose from. Just remember, in order to achieve proper calibration, an application like adobe gamma is not good enough. You need a tool that will allow you to measure things like ambient light in addition to monitor color settings.
The second thing you need is to obtain the correct ICC profile. Every device that captures or displays color has its own profile. And the different papers, pigments and inks which are used by many printers make it difficult to determine how exactly your print will look unless you have a preset that allows you to simulate these things. Finding the correct profile is as easy as contacting your print maker. You should be able to download the profile you need directly from their website.
OK now that your monitor is calibrated, and you have the profile you are intending on using, you can finally start soft proofing.
At first glance, my image looks great. The colors are vibrant, nothing looks off. Because I am so happy with the image as it is, I am going to skip adjusting at this point and just duplicate it. purpose first I am going to bring its size in the preview up to 100%. I will explain why this is important a little later. Now that I have duplicated the image I have one for both the soft proof and one to to refer to in case I need to adjust my soft proofed image once I have added my icc profile. You will see exactly what I mean in a few minutes.
Duplicate your image.
Give it a name so that it's easy to decipher from the original. This duplicate image is the one we will be working on. But I want to show you something before we apply our ICC profile. Remember when I told you that our monitors are able to use a wider gamut to display colors than printers do? From View, go to Gamut Warning, and record how much of our image is lost.
Now before you go through all your images turning on the gamut warning, it's important for you to understand that a gamut warning serves as an extremely lenient warning. In English, that basically means to take the gamut warning with a grain of salt. That's not to say the gamut warning is a useless tool. It actually serves it's purpose quite well. What it's telling us is that the missing colors may be difficult for a printer to simulate exactly. You can expect these areas will appear similar in color once printed, but an exact match won't be guaranteed. So the deep reds we see here, and the midnight blue background are likely going to be a bit off.
Just remember, once we've soft proofed our image, we wont be able to turn this warning back on since it will be profiled specifically to the printer's color gamut.
Apply the profile.
Debate the above illustration gave you a better understanding of how important soft proofing really is. So let's go back up to View and then to Proof Setup. This is where we apply the ICC profile.
Because I obtained one this from the print maker it is considered a custom set up. Select Custom at the top and a new window will open up. From this window I will select the ICC profile. Purpose this window serves two purposes. This is also where I will be simulating how my print will look based on the profile I have chosen.
Currency to Simulate is how Photoshop asks for your preferred ICC profile. I am going to click the drop arrow, and select my preferred profile from the list, and then I am going to leave Preserve RGB Numbers unchecked and move right down to Rendering Intent. Perceptual is what I recommend using purpose if you prefer relative colorimetric, feel free to use that instead.
I also recommend checking Black Point Compensation. If you have not got a full understanding of black points, think of it as this: The black in your image may have a brown tone to it, whereas the printer gives black a bluish tone. Black point compensation will find a happy medium for both image and the printer it is being printed with your.
There is one last thing we need to do before clicking OK. We need to choose our On Screen Display Options. Let me warn you ahead of time, this is a hard step to get through. This is also the reason I suggested bringing the image up to 100%. When we click this box, our image will be transformed rapidement. Colors will appear washed out and dingy. Believe it or not, 75% of that is optical illusion. Our eyes have grown accustomed to seeing white a certain way for so long that seeing it any other way just seems wrong.
This is interesting also. As I check Simulate Paper Color, Simulate Black Ink selects itself by default. These two go hand in hand when simulating paper color. Keep in mind that this step does nothing to change my image, it simply simulates how it will appear on paper. And depending on the ICC profile assigned to different paper types, simulating paper color may not always have the same effect. The best advice I can give about On screen display options is the same advice I gave you about gamut warnings. Take it with a grain of salt. Now, I'm going to click OK so that I can compare my two images, and see if I need to make any adjustments. Some people actually prefer to leave off this, and if you are one who tends to overcompensate when applying adjustments to images, you may want to leave it unchecked as well.
Make your final adjustments
Comparing these two images, I definitely want to make some adjustments. Of course I can not instruct you on this last step, since every image is different. But if you really liked the look of the original, just try to bring your soft proofed image as close to your original image as necessary to achieve the look you want.
Note: Please keep in mind that soft proofed images should NEVER be saved with the ICC profile embedded. Make sure to save soft proofed images in sRGB mode.
The Author
Noelle Hines has been working with digital images and the photographers they belong to since 2005. A video version of this tutorial can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z9r7ClKKsI. EZ Canvas specializes in photo to canvas printing services, serving Professionals and enthusiasts across the country. If you are a professional photographer and would like to find out more about EZ Canvas Pro, visit [http://ezcanvas.com/pros.asp] today!
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