Alright folks… Another question that has come to mind. I have no way of testing as of yet as I don’t own a printer…
How is the printing from PL? Lets say I’m going to use a lab (I will for a while) like Bay Photo in the US… How is the color management, workflow? Soft proofing? Any gotchas?
Anyone know of any good tutorials or walk-throughs regarding a printing workflow using PL?
Tom
Before you even think about printing from any application…
The first thing you must do is calibrate and profile your monitor. If you don’t, getting a match between what you see on screen and what comes out of a printer is very hit and miss. A common problem that calibrating and profiling will fix is that most people have the brightness of their monitors way too high, and then wonder why their prints are dark.
Next thing you should do is work under controlled lighting. Avoid it being too bright or under lighting that introduces a colour cast, like olde worlde household tungsten bulbs.
Using a wide gamut monitor also helps considerably.
I have a Dell UltraSharp monitor that can be hardware calibrated and profiled to cover 100% Adobe RGB. My printer is OK but not outstanding, it’s a six ink Epson device.
Despite the limitations of my printer, I can get prints out of it, reliably, that are near enough to what I see on screen to make me happy. Happy enough for me to frame them and hang them in my home. Family and friends also have prints of mine on their walls.
As for printing from PL. Generally, I don’t. I export my PL processed files as a 16 bit TIFF with an embedded Adobe RGB profile and print from Affinity Photo (or sometimes from an ancient version of Photoshop). Why? Because I’ve several years of experience with that workflow and I know it works for me.
Yes, I’m all calibrated up… Both my MacBook monitor and my Benq. (The benq is what I tend to use the most).
Ok… thanks for this idea.
Tom
Like @stuck I don’t print directly from PL.
I create a virtual copy and apply soft proofing, using the profile that the lab recommends or provides. Then I export that version to a 16bit TiFF and send that to the lab.
I have a Canon Pro 1000 printer and do the same soft proofing routine but with a profile for the paper I intend to print on. Then I use Canon’s own Professional Print & Layout software to send the TIFF to the printer.
Little note. Make sure your monitor is calibrated to only 80cd/m² as anything brighter can give you darker prints than you anticipate.
Yup… I’m all good with the monitor calibration… I appreciate the workflow guidance… helpful as always @Joanna .
Tom
I’m pretty sure I already answered this myself, but to make sure from those who know, you can’t create custom print templates in PL8, correct? Say you want three overlapping images on the same panel for artistic or creative purposes, you’ll need to use other software? My trial has expired, and I did not try much printing. I’m waiting for Black Friday, now. I print from Lightroom, but was looking to escape the Adobe realm. The Epson layout software will do what I need, but it adds another step. And do you have any advice for adding text to a photo or printing text in a photo frame? I have been using Photoshop. I often just use the caption for text in Lightroom, but it’s very restricted in PL, it seems.
I only use epson layout for printing, gives much more control in my view, especially for mono.
yes it’s an extra step but I believe it’s worth it. Glyn Dewis did a test showing printing via canon or epson own software gave much better results than printing straight from LR or other editing program.
To make a tryptich i use Affinity Photo 2
Glyn Dewis video link
I have followed this ‘conventional wisdom’ for longer than I can remember. Photo editing programs tend not to be great at printing. Remember that PhotoLab is a raw processor, not a pixel editor. As @Pentaxowner states, I too use Affinity Photo.
My preferred workflow is to process the raw files in PhotoLab to the desired state, then export to disk as a 16 bit tiff, picking them up from there in Affinity for pixel based edits and adding text. Once saved, use the print layout program of your choice.
Good luck! 