PLv7: Wide Gamut Color Space - Soft Proofing, Export to Disk, NikCollection

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

Continued, from above …

Addressing more of your points, Manfred;

@Klick

I don’t print myself, but occasionally have my pictures printed by a print lab

In this case, you’re exporting for Paper-&-Ink (not to a display device).

So, the best approach would be to ask your print lab for an ICC-Profile that best describes the printer+paper that they’ll be using … and set-up Soft Proofing for that profile … so that, once again, it will be a case of WYSIWYG.

@Klick

→ How does the situation with PLv6 compare to PLv7 now?

→ Assuming I’m an “average-Joe”, as @John-m puts it in the thread who expects PLv6 (or now PLv7) to exhibit “WYSIWYG” behavior in all cases - has this now been enabled - what is the situation with PLv7? I have not found any reference.

No change with PLv7 … DxO chose not to contrive to provide a WYSIWYG experience by default … One needs to have SP activated to achieve that.

• I’m fine with this - It just means (for simplicity) that SP should be activated for one’s intended output target (which, typically, is sRGB).

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Regarding your question about the “Preserve Color Detail” check-box in Export to Disk;
@wolfgang addresses this question in his response

I’ll elaborate for some emphasis …

Preserve Color Detail refers to a DxO-specific algorithm (PCD) that determines how colors and details are “squished” to fit into a smaller color space (such as sRGB) … In the SP interface, the slider associated with this setting determines the strength or degree by which this algorithm is applied.

• I recommend using the default=50 in SP settings - because;
  i) my experience is that this setting works well (I’ve never found a reason to change it)
  ii) using this default avoids potential clashes with related settings for Export to Disk

@Klick

The PLv7 manual describes the following in the chapter on export options:

• In the case of 1) - the PCD algorithm is applied at its default strength (=50)

• The the case of 2) - the PCD algorithm is applied at the same degree/strength as is defined in Soft Proofing … which may be other than the default.

• If the “Preserve Color Detail” check-box is left unchecked then the PCD algorithm is not applied at all … but I cannot imagine why one would want that (?!)

See this thread, posted by @KeithRJ, for a process-flow explanation of how, and when, the PCD algorithm is applied.

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Note: There’s a glitch/fault in the Soft Proofing UI that probably causes confusion for some users (esp. those coming to PL from “other” software);

• When an ICC Profile is selected that targets a display device (such as sRGB) then, wrongly/redundantly, the drop-down control for Intent is left activated on the UI.

• “Intent” is a legacy setting that predates the introduction of the PCD-algorithm - which was described to beta-testers, during development of PLv6, as being a proprietary algorith that’s a combination of Perceptual & Relative (the Intent options), providing a “smart” implementation that does not require the user to make a choice between one OR the other.

• (The Intent dropdown IS relative ONLY when the selected ICC Profile is for a non-display/printer target … in which case, the PCD slider IS correctly de-activated).

• DxO is aware of this issue - and, hopefully, we’ll see this fixed in an upcoming release.

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NOTE:

The “Preserve Color Details” setting for Soft Proofing (which relates to the PCD algorithm described above) is NOT the same as the similarly named “Protect Saturated Colors” setting in the Color/B&W Rendering tool - - they’re each doing “different things”.