Soft Proofing in Photo

[rmazzi]

I am trying to print an 8 page booklet of photos in Affinity Publisher.  The colors lose some saturation when i print it out on Matte paper as i would expect.  I am used to soft proofing in Lightroom, which has a lot of control for specific papers.  Within Affinity, i believe soft proofing is only available in Affinity Photo, so i am trying to create a workflow to boost the saturation for the paper type, but ultimately print it out of Affinity Publisher.  When I opened an image in AP, I applied the ICC profile for Inkpress Print Plus Matte two sided paper on the soft proof layer.  The color shift was dramatic, it desaturated the colors.  Relative and perceptual rendering did not change the color, but saturation rendering did and brought it much closer to the desired output.  If i try other paper profiles, the color shift is more subtle and more like what i would expect using matte papers.  A couple of question to help me figure out how to do this workflow:

1.  The Affinity Photo tutorials do not follow soft proofing through to the printing module.  Do you turn off the soft proof layer then use the other layers adjustments to print.? 

2.  Since the color shift is unusually dramatic on the one ICC profile, could it be a problem with how AP using this particular third party profile (although i have not seen this issue in Lightroom or inDesign for that matter)?

3. How do you set Saturation rendering to in the print workflow - this is a clear setting in Photoshop and Lightroom?  I don't see the rendering option in the workflow.

4. I really need to print this out in Publisher, so how do you carry through the soft proofing adjustments back to Publisher to get the adjustments that would help recover some of the saturation lost on matte paper?

I am quite frustrated by the lack of a clear tutorial or manual on managing a print workflow to a photo printer (such as a Surecolor P600 or Canon Pro 1000).  This is further complicated but the different print interfaces between Publisher and Photo.  Affinity Photo is much better, Publisher has a mysterious printer feature tab that doesn't make much sense (i have a related, unanswered post on this).

Please point me in the right direction to anything that would educate me.  I have looked through the Affinity Photo Tutorials, the Affinity Publisher Tutorials (both on the website, and the extra tutorials i have purchased).  I also bought the Affinity Photo Workbook.  I am either a slow learner or the information is not there.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, rmazzi said:

The Affinity Photo tutorials do not follow soft proofing through to the printing module.  Do you turn off the soft proof layer then use the other layers adjustments to print.? 

The soft-proofing tutorial I remember did follow through to printing, but it was one of the older ones.

Yes, you turn off the soft-proof adjustment.

The idea is that you place additional adjustments on top of the soft-proof adjustment to get the on-screen image to look right, then turn off the soft-proof before printing or exporting.

For Publisher, are you linking or embedding the images? And what format files are you linking or embedding?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, rmazzi said:

I am quite frustrated by the lack of a clear tutorial or manual on managing a print workflow to a photo printer (such as a Surecolor P600 or Canon Pro 1000).  This is further complicated but the different print interfaces between Publisher and Photo.  Affinity Photo is much better, Publisher has a mysterious printer feature tab that doesn't make much sense (i have a related, unanswered post on this).

From the screenshots in your other topic, I assume you are a Mac user, right?

If so, please keep in mind that like many other apps the Mac Affinity ones use the built-in macOS printing system for printing, which in turn uses the printer-specific software (drivers & related items) installed on the system. Because different printer models require different software (typically even different ones from the same manufacturer), on any particular Mac there are hundreds of possible print dialog variations, each one tailored to the capabilities of a particular printer.

For obvious reasons, there is no way Serif can cover the specifics of them all. For this, it is best to refer to the printer's owner manual or to the printer manufacturer's own support site.

Of course, each of the three Affinity apps also include a few printing options & some of them are not currently supported by all three apps, so if you need help understanding how to use any of them, asking about that in this forum is probably your best bet. Just make sure you specify which printer, app, & OS version you are using, because that does make a difference.

Also, if concepts like soft-proofing or color management in general are new to you, a web search is the way to go because there is much more to those subjects than could be covered in user forums, product manuals, etc. One of my favorite 'go-to' sites for such things is the tutorial sections of https://www.cambridgeincolour.com but there are other good ones too.

[rmazzi]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

For Publisher, are you linking or embedding the images? And what format files are you linking or embedding?

Thank you for the reply.  I am embedding TIFF files that were processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.  The image is of sunflowers so the yellows are quite saturated.  I know I have a challenge trying to get enough saturation on matte paper.  On the soft proofing i had the adjustment layers below the soft proof.  I must of misunderstood the one tutorial where i thought they were below.  I will make the change and see how i do.  I think part of my challenge is getting out of the Photoshop/Lightroom mindset and better understanding how this is designed. 

Also, thank you R C-R for taking the time with your reply.  I actually understand color management reasonably well and have managed it in PS/LR without much problem.  My struggle is with the Printer Features section of the print dialog in Publisher.  Your insight on how the software deals with print drivers is helpful and i will take advantage of the link you provided to learn more.   Unfortunately finding any real documentation from Epson on their drivers is difficult at best.  I am still a bit puzzled on why Affinity Photo does not have the Printer Feature tab, while Publisher does.  The Photo Version is identical to what is used in LR, so it is familiar.

Thanks again for the assistant to both of you.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, rmazzi said:

I am still a bit puzzled on why Affinity Photo does not have the Printer Feature tab, while Publisher does. 

I confess I am not quite sure what you mean by the Printer Feature tab.

Both apps have the same basic printing options, but as I said that will depend on the printer selected in the print dialog window, so for example color related options could appear in different popup sub-menus and/or use different naming conventions with one printer selected vs. another. Also, the availability of some of the printer options may depend on if others are selected, so it is possible that a setting in one popup will prevent options in another from appearing.

This is why I suggested referring to the owner's manual, although I am all too well aware that some of them do not cover everything as well as one would like, particularly for Macs. 

Anyway, assuming you have selected the same printer in both apps, there should not be any significant differences in their printing features, other than maybe ones related to the kind of document you have open.

[rmazzi]

Thanks again for the response.  I think i have just about muddled my way through this and I think i know what i am doing wrong and how to correct a few things.  I will have to guess a bit on the printer settings, but think i know the combinations of features i need to select in the printer driver. 

Just as an FYI here are the two drop down boxes for Epson Printers.  One from Affinity Photo (left box)  and one From Affinity Publisher (right box).  The choices are the same for a Surecolor P600 and a Stylus R3000.  As you can see the Printer Settings, Page Layout Settings and Advanced Media Control seem to be rolled up into a single Printer Features options.  I showed the long list of printer features in a different post: 

The confusing part of this approach by the development team is that there are four places to select the media.  Options do not grey out as they do in the way Photo is set up.  I would like to see them standardized.  After all integration of the three apps is a strength of the Affinity suite.  I will need to see if there is a feature request already in the other forum.  If not, i will open one and see what happens.

Affinity Photo on left,  Affinity Publisher on Right

 

[R C-R]

Regarding your other topic, the place to learn about the functions of the various "Printer Features" items themselves is your owner's manual.

As for why they are presented differently in Affinity Photo vs. Affinity Publisher, there could be several reasons.

One is that some settings will only be available when the printer manages color -- if you choose the ColorSync option (wherever the driver software puts that option) many of them won't be available because ColorSync is an alternative method of color management that takes over managing many of those settings. Likewise, some page layout settings may only be applicable for certain paper types and/or document types (because single page documents don't require any that apply only to multi-page ones).

Also, I noticed that according to pp 25-26 of this Epson support document that "Printer Settings" may only be available if you select "Advanced Color Settings" in the print dialog.

A related reason could be that Photo & Publisher might send different data to the macOS printing system depending on the type of document that is open, which in turn determines how it interacts with the printer driver. 

IOW, what you see in the Mac printer dialog & how it is organized is the result of the dynamic interaction of three things: the app itself, the printing system, & the printer driver. The app can control only part of that, & part of that will depend on the settings you choose, both for the document & in the printing dialog.

[rmazzi]

I think i should start a different thread since this one is tagged to Photo.  I started down this path to get the colors right on a specific type of paper and printer.  I realized that I have to soft proof it in Affinity Photo and export the adjusted TIFF or JPEG with the specific adjustments needed for the printer/paper combo.  These adjusted photo files would be the ones I need to use in Affinity Publisher to get the colors right.  A bit of a work around, but that could be intention of the designers.  I can do the same in LR or PS and opt that the soft proofing is identical between the programs.  This seems to solve the first part of my problem.  The second part is Publisher specific, so i think a new thread or continuation of the old thread is in order.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, rmazzi said:

I think i should start a different thread since this one is tagged to Photo.  I started down this path to get the colors right on a specific type of paper and printer.  I realized that I have to soft proof it in Affinity Photo and export the adjusted TIFF or JPEG with the specific adjustments needed for the printer/paper combo.  These adjusted photo files would be the ones I need to use in Affinity Publisher to get the colors right.  A bit of a work around, but that could be intention of the designers.  I can do the same in LR or PS and opt that the soft proofing is identical between the programs.  This seems to solve the first part of my problem.  The second part is Publisher specific, so i think a new thread or continuation of the old thread is in order.

You should be able to do the same kind of adjustments directly in Publisher, using the Photo Persona, in a couple of ways.

1. Switch to the Photo Persona, add a soft-proof adjustment layer, and make your adjustments. Note: All of this will operate on the complete Publisher page, not just on the image. If there are other items on the page that you don't want to affect. you should use make a marquee selection of the image first, to provide a mask for any adjustments to ensure that they apply only to the image portion of the page.
    
2. Or, assuming you're working with a Linked image file, click on Edit Image, then switch to the Photo Persona, and make your adjustments. In this case, the adjustments will apply only to the image, not to the complete Publisher page. However, any changes you make will be saved to the original file.

[rmazzi]

Interesting.  Thanks.  That is a little less clunky.  I would not have thought about the marquee mask.  So the Photo Persona assumes the entire page, and what is on it, as the photo that will be adjusted.  

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, rmazzi said:

So the Photo Persona assumes the entire page, and what is on it, as the photo that will be adjusted.  

Publisher (all Personas) works on pages. And anything you do in any of the Personas affects the entire page (unless masked).

The exception is Edit Document or Edit Image. There you are working on the document or image that you chose to edit, not the original document with its pages.