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Posted

First let me introduce myself. I'm a 68 year old recently retired curmudgeon. I used to shoot a fair amount on the film side, but got away from it for many years. It's just since I retired that I got back into photography, but on the digital side of things. I find I've still retained some of my general camera knowledge, but have a lot of catching up to do. Especially with the editing aspect. 

I'm having problems getting my images to look the way I anticipate. I recently sent the attached image to a well known print shop. I'm in no way insinuating they did anything wrong. In fact I think they sent me a flawless print. It's just that it's darker than I expected, and has a slight orange cast to it. I believe this is all due to my inexperience is digital processing. It was printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 if that is any factor.

I processed this on a new 27" IMAC running Catalina 10.15.4. The monitor was recently calibrated with a Datacolor SpyderX Pro. I'm using  Afinity Photo 1.8.2. I soft proofed it and thought I had it nailed, but when I compare the print to my image I need to dial my exposure down about 40 to 50 % in order to get my monitor to resemble the finished print.  I put the soft proof layer above my image and then added my further adjustments above that. Then turned off the soft proof layer.

This image was taken right at sunrise on an extremely foggy morning looking directly into the sun. It was so foggy that I couldn't even discern the sun. It was quite a pink  scene with a lot of overall light.

I'd appreciate it if someone would point me in the right directions.

Thanks,

Scotty

 

Island_Sunrise_3402_Rev.3.jpg

Posted
3 hours ago, Scotty512 said:

 I put the soft proof layer above my image and then added my further adjustments above that. Then turned off the soft proof layer.

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

You should have the Soft Proof  adjustment at the very top of the layer stack. Then, yes, turn it off for exporting a printable file.

(Not saying that that alone will fix your discrepancy.)

Posted
6 hours ago, anon2 said:

You should have the Soft Proof  adjustment at the very top of the layer stack.

Not according to the Serif Soft-Proofing Tutorial I remember watching. They added the Soft Proof Adjustment, then made further adjustments on top.

And then, of course, turned off the Soft Proof adjustment prior to printing. Tat's how I've always used it, with good results.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted

@Scotty512: What color format and color profile do you have assigned to the document?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Not according to the Serif Soft-Proofing Tutorial I remember watching. They added the Soft Proof Adjustment, then made further adjustments on top.

Even if your recollection of the tutorial is correct, the fact remains that the Soft Proof layer should be at the very top if it is to simulate the result of printing everything else in the document. Logic should tell you that, anyway, and bear in mind that it's not unknown for a tutorial to contain misinformation.

Posted
20 minutes ago, anon2 said:

Even if your recollection of the tutorial is correct, the fact remains that the Soft Proof layer should be at the very top if it is to simulate the result of printing everything else in the document. Logic should tell you that, anyway, and bear in mind that it's not unknown for a tutorial to contain misinformation.

Logic tells me that the Soft Proof adjustment applied to my existing file simulates how the image will look when printed.

Logic further tells me that if I want to adjust how it looks beyond that, I would put the adjustments on top of the Soft Proof adjustment, just as I do when adding additional adjustments to my image normally.

I don't normally say let me add an xxx adjustment. Then, no, that's still not right, let me add a yyy adjustment under it to fix things.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
10 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Can you give some further information e.g. what was the document color profile and export method of the image that you handed out to printshop?

sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and exported as a JPEG directly to the print shops online software.

Posted
45 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Logic tells me that the Soft Proof adjustment applied to my existing file simulates how the image will look when printed.

Yes, with the Soft Proof at the top of the stack, you get a simulation of a physical print of the composite below the Soft Proof.

45 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Logic further tells me that if I want to adjust how it looks beyond that, I would put the adjustments on top of the Soft Proof adjustment, just as I do when adding additional adjustments to my image normally.

No, logic says that putting adjustments on top of the Soft Proof is like trying to simulate what would happen if you could somehow put adjustments on top of the physical print.

I see there's a video by Serif's James Ritson where he does what I'm advising you to do - adjust below the Soft Proof layer - but maybe you can provide a link to the contradictory Serif tutorial.

Posted

I don't recall whether it got darker or lighter, but while it was noticeable, I wouldn't call it significant.

As to adjustments; there was a levels adjustment, a slight HSL adjustment, some sharpening, some distractions removed and that was about it. I'm far from an advanced AP user, so not a lot was done.

Posted
1 hour ago, anon2 said:

see there's a video by Serif's James Ritson where he does what I'm advising you to do - adjust below the Soft Proof layer - but maybe you can provide a link to the contradictory Serif tutorial.

Or I have misremembered. I will check further. Thanks.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
5 minutes ago, BofG said:

Just a random thought, when you calibrated your monitor did it take into account the ambient light levels? Have those levels changed since you calibrated it? Colour perception is easily thrown off, you need to ensure your workspace is consistent in terms of light levels and indeed sources of light.

Also, for the soft proof it needs to be at the top of the stack - it's intended to show what will come out of the printer so has to apply to everything that will be printed. As an extreme example, set a black and white soft proof for a black and white printer, add some yellow element above it - your black and white printer won't suddenly start being able to print yellow to match the screen ;)

I'm working in my home office where the lighting remains pretty consistent.

I just went back and looked at Robin Walley's video, and he indeed added the soft proofing layer at the very top and made any further adjustments directly below that. I cant recall wether  I made my adjustments above or below and I don't see a way to go back and view that. Is there?

Posted
51 minutes ago, BofG said:

If you have the file saved with history then you might be able to use that to step back through and see. I've never used it myself so I can't tell you the exact steps.

On the calibration, did you have to set your monitor brightness to match the ambient levels? I'm not sure whether the Spyder has that option, but I know from my X-rite it was optional and actually made a very noticeable difference to how accurate the colours were.

Pretty sure the SpyderX Pro did that.

Posted
43 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

I tried to reproduce this with images where there were initially camera profiles embedded. Your starting point might well have been similar. This is one point where this might get wrong, because there is difference in whether you assign a different color profile, or convert from one to another.

I could easily reproduce this problem when  opening digital photos with embedded Adobe RGB. This would be used as a "document profile" when opening the image, and would be embedded as the color profile when I export to JPG. So the crucial question is at which point and how you applied the printshop provided sRGB profile? If you did it via Document > Assign ICC Profile, no color conversion would happen, but because of color values were not adjusted and remapped, you would get darker and duller colors because of narrower production color profile. But if you instead chose Document > Convert Format / ICC Profile, color values would be remapped  so that the visual appearance would be tried to be retained.

The third option would be applying it at export time, which I think would result in camera profile getting converted (rather than just swithced without color values changed) to printer profile, so I guess this would work.

But this is indeed a crucial step, and would fully explain darkening / dullening of tones.

Lagarto, your post absolutely hammers home how little I know about AP and editing, and how much I need to study more. I'm afraid I don't understand very much about the things you've mentioned.

The shop only provided a ICC profile, and not a separate sRGB profile. It had instructions on how to drag it into the folder it should go. All I did was select their ICC profile in the soft proofing process. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, Scotty512 said:

The shop only provided a ICC profile, and not a separate sRGB profile. It had instructions on how to drag it into the folder it should go. All I did was select their ICC profile in the soft proofing process. 

That sounds correct, but as I said in the very first response you got (and which you never acknowledged), you should have had the Soft Proof adjustment as the very top layer, not underneath other adjustments.

Posted

Sorry. Although I did state in later post that I put it at the top intially but I don't recall if I made my adjustment above or below. I now know that my adjustment's need to be below the soft proof layer.

Posted
21 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Ok, that at least means that the printer workshop profile never got selected as part of the production workflow, as Soft Proof only allows simulating a specific production conditions without actually making a change (I think it also only shows what would happen if you used current color values with another profile, which is not what is typically done; instead colors would be converted and mapped to preserve perceptual similarness EDIT: No, it does simulate conversion and mapping).

But this is not necessarily problematic as the printer color profile was sRGB or close to it. So the crucial question is whether your photos included a color profile or not. Often camera profiles use wider color profile than sRGB and if they use AdobeRGB, and colors are not converted but simply the profile changed, you would get darker / duller tones.

EDIT: The same would also happen if your JPG actually got an AdobeRGB color profile embedded, but the print workshop would simply just strip off the embedded color profile (this actually often happens). There is no harm having camera profile embedded, as long as the print workshop continues the workflow and performs the final conversions on their end, to produce color data that the print device expects to have. But if they instruct the customers to apply sRGB color profile to produce colors in expected color pofile, and simply just trust in getting that (ignoring any embedded color profiles), you would experience these kinds of problems.

Lagarto, sorry I wasn't aware that there is a limit to the number of posts per day.

I looked at the info for this picture and it says that it has the same color space and color profile I mentioned yesterday.

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