Good afternoon. I am new to PhotoLab and just finding my way around. So far I am very happy with it and find it very straightforward to use. I have a question on soft proofing and apologise in advance if I have missed something obvious. I have taken a raw image, processed it and exported to a 16 bit TIFF so I can check against other pipelines. I then enable soft proofing and load in the ICC profile for my printer and paper combination from the paper manufacturer. I then do a gamut check from the histogram panel and make adjustments as necessary, set the intent and print the image. Have I done this correctly? I am puzzled by the soon to be enabled āSimulate paper and inkā. Havenāt I just achieved that? Many thanks.
Unfortunately, someone in DxOās marketing department must have decided it was a good idea to sell a version of PL that has an unimplemented feature? A bit like selling you a Ferrari and telling you that the steering wheel will be delivered at some time in the future. Itās no good complaining because you have the car you paid for and the steering wheel will be free when it arrives
Hi Dennis and welcome,
I think that DxO intends to supply their own āPaper and inkā profiles a la camera and lens profiles. If you already have one then you are a step ahead of them(you got your steering wheel from a third party source in @Joanna analogy above. It may not be Ferrari but you can still steer the car with it. )
Well, that could be interesting when you look at the multiplicity of papers and inks there are around.
I have been creating my printer profiles for years - it doesnāt take long and, if I change paper, I donāt have to wait for anyone else to create one for my particular printerās ink. That kind of situation would end up with us having to wait while DxO gets around to testing all those possible combinations. As it is, they take long enough to support new cameras and lenses.
Most printer manufacturers only supply profiles for their own brand of paper and ink but I use fine art paper and tend to buy from suppliers like Fotospeed, Fuji and Canson.
But, since I find PhotoLabās printing dialog to be inadequate, I always export to correctly sized TIFF files and then use either Canonās own print manager or macOS preview or ColorSync Utility, which already contain soft proofing tools.
It fills me with horror to think they would try profiling printer, inks and papers. They canāt even do many cameras and lenses let alone ignoring phones. It would be nice if they would at least sort out the printing module thatās been accepted as being a mess for years but to do prifiles looks to me a One Camera fiasco in the making.
Iām quite sure itās not the profiling of papers and devices thatās holding them back.
If anything I would guess itās the simulation engine thatās not ready.
Profiles for any involved paper and device makers are usually supplied by respective manufacturer.
You very seldomly take in such a task yourself as a solitary company.
If DxO actually are going to create their own profiles, it could be from charts created by the manufacturers and supplied to DxO.
And they then simply runs the last steps in the profile process.
welcome to the Forum and please see ā Why does Photolab not embed ICC profiles in output? - #8 by Wolfgang ( last note )
Agree. I think theyā ll use paper profiles from manufacturers. Seems like the most logical thing to do.
All printing profiles are ICC and are available, either by downloading form the manufacturers website, or by creating them yourself. There is absolutely no need or expectation for DxO to provide anything in this regard.
Agree. Maybe itā s hard to make those profiles available through " Simulate Paper & Ink " button inside PL? Donā t know.
That would be an indictmentā¦every other software I use, that supports soft proofing, allows me to select profiles from the manufacturers or select my my own created profiles (as explained by Joanna) and see the result on screen.
But the topic has already been discussed long and wide.