Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Does it mean a Soft Proof Adjustment is NOT the Affinity substitution to output an image for a specific device on print – like a specific profile of a print service is chosen on export?

The AP Soft Proof Adjustment is meant to do what the help topic I linked to says it does; that being to simulate on screen what a printout would look like on paper when using an ICC profile intended for that combination of printer, paper, ink, & driver (if it is not 'driverless').

As I understand it, the process would be very much like what I wrote about here regarding adapting the process in that post's linked article written for a typical Photoshop workflow to one in AP.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

I do not think that they are meant for print purposes. But as far as I know the feature uses the same ICC profiles that are used by printer drivers when a specific media is selected from the driver (or by Adobe and Affinity apps when specifying app-based color management in context of local printing). It is just that they might be meant to be used with sRGB color space and not with Adobe RGB or some other wide gamut color space.

If that was true, why would the Soft Proof Adjustment offer such a wide variety of proof profiles, including Adobe RGB & ROMM RGB (a.k.a. ProPhoto RGB) among many others?

(Not a rhetorical question.)

[lacerto]

(...)

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

The problem is that neither method seems to produce reliable results so it is impossible to say whether soft proofing could actually be used for anything else than "experimental" purposes when applied in print jobs.   

When I refer to the workflow example in the article I linked to in the other topic, specifically to steps 10-12 to make the necessary adjustments to compensate for differences in printer/paper/ink color gamuts, it seems to me that a very common use of soft proofing is to create printer-specific exports, as per that article's steps 16 & 17. It is also consistent with other articles I have seen about the primary use of soft proofing, for example this one. That one does mention "trial & error" so I assume that is an inherent part of the process.

However, I lack the expertise or experience to make an informed comment on if or to what extent doing this in Photoshop, Krita, or whatever would be comparable to using soft proofing for the same purpose in AP, what the exact steps should be in AP, or how reliable it would be.

[panelson3]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

So just to confirm, you do not see a "Color Matching" choice for your printer & for that a choice between ColorSync & printer matching?

Also, for your tests with an AP Soft Proof adjustment, the idea is to turn that on & use it as a guide to adjust the colors (via curves or whatever adjustments) so the image looks as close to what you want the print to like like as possible, & then to turn it off for the final export. Otherwise, there is no point in using soft proofing.

You understand that, right?

@R C-R, Yes, I have the "Color Matching" menu item in my printer dialog, and I see both "ColorSync" and "Epson Color Controls". The reason that I said that ColorSync is my only option is because it works within the ICC color management workflow where the Epson controls do not.

Yes, I understand that the SP adjustment layer is for soft proofing so that I can simulate on screen what is going to come out of my printer. However, I respectfully disagree that one has to make adjustments when soft proofing to make it worth doing. I've used soft proofing to decide which rendering intent to use. I've had other occasions when I've looked at a soft proof, thought the color looked fine, and sent it to the printer without making any adjustments. If I decide I need to make adjustments, it is usually because I am printing to a printer/paper that has a color gamut much smaller than my working space, like AdobeRGB to US Web Coated (SWOP) or some variant of CMYK.

I recently saw a YouTube video that showed how to use the gamut warning in the sp adjustment layer along with some Curve and HSL adjustments to bring the out of gamut colors into the printer's color space. While this exercise gives the user the control for how the out-of-gamut colors are brought into the printer's color space, one could also just let the color management conversion handle it. Since the printer is not going to print out-of-gamut colors because it can't, the original color is going to be reproduced by the printer as accurately as it can depending on the quality of the ICC printer profile and the rendering intent that is chosen. I don't want to have to make adjustments to my image so that I can get it close to what the printer can reproduce. That's the function of an ICC color managed workflow - let color management make the color translations so that I don't have to. That said, there's nothing wrong with making adjustments while viewing a soft proof to really fine tune the color for output, but that is not the sole purpose of soft proofing.

[lepr]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I lack the expertise or experience to make an informed comment

That was an informed comment.

 

[lacerto]

(...)

[panelson3]

I just thought I would post my rationale behind using the Soft Proof Adjustment Layer as a potential way to solve the color managed printing problem.

If I have an image in a layer in A Photo and place a Curves adjustment layer above it and make some adjustments to the curve, not only will I see those adjustments in A Photo on my computer display, I should also see the results of the curve adjustment on printed output (the color may not be accurate, but I should still be able to see the results of the adjustment, ie: brighter, darker, more contrast, whatever). This should hold true of any adjustment layer that I place above my image layer in the layer stack.

If I place a Soft Proof adjustment layer above my image layer and assign my printer profile, rendering intent, and black point compensation, then what I see on my color profiled display should be an accurate representation of what my printer will reproduce. Essentially, I'm taking my image layer, let's say it's currently in the AdobeRGB working space, and I'm having the soft proof adjustment layer translate the AdobeRGB to the printer's color space using the ICC profile defined in the adjustment layer. The adjusted color is then sent to the display by way of the display's ICC profile to render the simulated color of the print job.

So, if I can send the soft proof to the screen, why can I not leave the soft proof adjustment layer on and send the printer translated color to the printer and achieve an accurate color print? Would this not be the same as manually converting the working space color to the printer color (using: Document > Convert Format / ICC Profile...) and printing (no color management conversion in the printer driver, since the color has already been converted)?

Because of the lousy results, there's clearly a hole in my thinking or Affinity is doing something with the color translation that I don't understand.

[panelson3]

7 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

So I used Affinity Photo app color management in the Print Dialog box (only available in Windows versions)

The color management is not coming from Affinity Photo. It is provided by the operating system and written into the driver by the print driver's developer. In Adobe parlance, this would be equivalent to a setting of "Printer Manages Color" vs "Application Manages Color". The CMS is provided by Windows and is translating the color after you printed from Affinity Photo. In my case, I want Affinity Photo to translate the color ("Application Manages Color") when I initiate the print job. This would provide a consistent way to color manage for output to any printer on whatever OS that Affinity supports, rather than depending on the printer manufacturer to write the color management capabilities into their driver which would be inconsistent from one printer to the next (Epson vs HP vs Canon, etc).

[lacerto]

(...)

[panelson3]

7 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

I really do not know what happens under the hood, but why use this terminology (which is pretty much equivalent to one used in Photoshop):

I

This is equivalent to saying that the app has already performed the color conversion and not to perform the conversion again. In this case, the word "App" could mean any app that is sending a print job to the printer. It's not specific to Affinity. It's the same with the second image you posted, which basically says don't convert the print job that I just received. In the world of Epson and most major printers for that matter, there exists the option to turn off color management in the driver. If the "App" has already translated it, you want the translated color to pass through the driver and on to the printer without any additional color conversion.

[lacerto]

(...)

[panelson3]

39 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

What does the other option (that you can choose in Affinity) mean then

What other option are you referring to?

[lacerto]

(...)

[panelson3]

41 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

There are clearly issues with local printing within Affinity apps but the reasons for the oddly bad results that you have demonstrated in this post when printing using Adobe RGB workflow on an sRGB printer seem to be ones related to trying to pass through unconverted color data. Perhaps this is device-dependent as I did not experience similar problems printing virtually the same image.

Whereever the color conversion is performed, on Windows versions of Affinity apps there is no need to explicity convert the colors to sRGB, so similarly as when using Photohop, I can print from a document that uses the Adobe RGB color profile, choose the rendering intent of my choice while having printer controlled color management turned off, choose a target device specific media profile from the app rather than from the printer driver, and get acceptable (even if not great) results.

There is no such thing as an sRGB printer, and I never mentioned using sRGB for printing. So, I am confused by your post.

sRGB is a common color space originally developed to present accurate color in a web browser. For color consistency and ease of use, sRGB has been adopted by many hardware manufacturers and software developers. It happens to have a rather small color gamut, so for printing there are better options with larger color gamuts. That's why AdobeRGB is commonly used as a working space for graphics being sent to a commercial printer.

The process that you describe for Photoshop is exactly what I've been writing about all along. I want the same capabilities in Affinity software.

Working Color Space (AdobeRGB) converted by Affinity to the Device Color Space (Epson P800 on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag), sent out to the printer driver which is set to No Color Management (so that the color that has already been converted passes through and is not converted again by the driver), and then sent to the printer. I have been doing this for years with very predictable results.

[lacerto]

(...)

[panelson3]

13 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

It is in the screenshot: "Performed by Printer" (in contrast to "app"). 

So if the conversion can happen in the app or in the printer driver, you need to tell both the app and the driver which you prefer. If the app is performing the conversion, you have to make sure to turn it off in the driver. If the app is not performing the conversion, then you have to set up the driver to handle it. You never want to have both the driver and the app perform a conversion. It's either one or the other.

[panelson3]

1 minute ago, Lagarto said:

I mean printer that expects the color input to be in sRGB, such as your Epson does (as default).

Epson doesn't expect sRGB.

[lacerto]

(..)

[panelson3]

2 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

Yes, that's what I did (or at least assumed to have done), and which I assumed that the screenshots also showed?

This discussion has gotten off track. My original post asked if anyone understood why Affinity does not provide a way to convert output color prior to printing. I don't want to convert my images using ColorSync on a Mac in the print driver. If Affinity is going to be competitive, they are going to have to compete on capability and not just price. Printer color conversion is extremely fundamental. How is Publisher going to compete with InDesign if it can't print accurate color or facilitate a hard proof? I'm planning on using Designer to do client proposals. If it can't print accurate color, it's close to worthless.

[lacerto]

(...)

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, panelson3 said:

So, if I can send the soft proof to the screen, why can I not leave the soft proof adjustment layer on and send the printer translated color to the printer and achieve an accurate color print?

All I can say about that with any certainty is the help topic says if it is not hidden or removed before export or print, its effect will be included in the output. As I understand it (which admittedly is not all that well!) it means its effect will be added to the effect inherent in translating from one color space (that of the monitor) to another typically smaller color space (that of the printer).

IOW, if color accuracy it taken to mean the closest possible match between what is seen on the monitor & what is seen in the printout, leaving the soft proof adjustment visible would decrease that accuracy.

Note: by color space & translation in the above I mean what is shown in the Color Management Overview section about half way down this web page. So in this sense there are 3 color spaces (the input, PCS, & output ones) & two CMM translations involved.

[thomaso]

On 6/16/2020 at 1:20 PM, BofG said:

The soft proof shows what will come out on paper. It is not intended to adjust what gets put on the paper.

23 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I do not think that they ('profiles for soft proof') are meant for print purposes. But as far as I know the feature uses the same ICC profiles that are used by printer drivers when a specific media is selected from the driver

17 hours ago, panelson3 said:

So, if I can send the soft proof to the screen, why can I not leave the soft proof adjustment layer on and send the printer translated color to the printer and achieve an accurate color print? Would this not be the same as manually converting the working space color to the printer color (using: Document > Convert Format / ICC Profile...) and printing (no color management conversion in the printer driver, since the color has already been converted)?

Currently I assume the profile's color space is relevant and makes a profile usable for soft proof (RGB) only or for print (CMYK).

The print service 'blurb' recommends its profile for both, soft proof AND conversion for print:

Quote

The Blurb ICC Profile is based on the GRACoL2006 reference used in high-end commercial printing. Our entire print network adheres to this standard for the most consistent results possible with print on demand. By using this color profile, you can manage colors and soft proof your images while in RGB to see how they will look when printed, or use the profile to actually convert your images to the CMYK color space of the print device to eliminate the press-side conversion. This gives you more control over the images and how they will eventually print.
https://www.blurb.com/blog/color-management-printing/

This 'blurb' profile comes out to be CMYK. – While the manufacturer 'Hahnemühle' for its paper 'PhotoRag' doesn't text that clear, and, although asking for a specific printer model before download, its supplied profile is in RGB.

 

Whereas the fine art print service 'Saal' also offers a profile for 'Hahnemühle PhotoRag', in RGB too, additionally gives instructions for correct setup of Rendering Intent & Blackpoint – but explicitly says not to use its profile for conversion:

Quote

Our ICC profile is intended exclusively for screen proofing in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Under no circumstances should the profile be embedded in the file.
https://www.saal-digital.com/service/icc-profil/

I expected these 2 soft proof profiles of Hahnemühle and Saal would be quite similar but instead, they appear to differ obviously in file size and specifications, e.g.:

I assume the reason is the different printer devices, for Hahnemühle the user selected Epson, for Saal their probably very different machine.

Now, back to Affinity, it appears that I am not able to choose the blurb CMYK profile in the print options menu "Color Matching". Whoever is preventing it, I get RGB choices only, no CMYK profile at all, although the printing inks never are RGB. – Even if I convert the document's color space to CMYK the list of possible print profiles sticks with RGB only.

Maybe my Epson would not accept CMYK input? Would that make sense, if I get access to this menu only when I deselect before "EPSON Color Controls" and chose "ColorSync" instead?

@R C-R, you posted some days ago for the "Color Matching" menu: "I get a second window that offers a choice of every ColorSync profile installed on my Mac, like this: (screenhot)". Are you sure it's "any" profile? Your screenshot shows RBG only, too.
 

The Affinity Soft Proof adjustment profile selection also confuses me. It appears I get offered profiles for soft proof only in the same color space like the document. But how does this make sense? When I need to convert the file anyway then I could choose the desired profile already, instead of converting to a different profile first. Correct?

Also in Affinity the "Assign ICC Profile" appears strange: here, too, I get offered only profiles of the current document's color space, while with the "Convert" command I have free choice. – For what purpose should I not be able to assign a CMYK profile when working in RGB? Or vice versa, if I am in APub on a CMYK brochure and place RGB resources, why do I need to convert them instead of assigning the current .afpub profile ? (which additionally may change before getting exported according to a specific print service)

  >> 

[thomaso]

I still don't understand why at all I need to soft proof + modify my image colors, instead applying an according profile for print or export only (like offered by 'blurb').

It seems wrong to me that an image when printed by various providers would demand from me different color manipulations and therefore different files on disk before I send them. That implies those service providers don't use profiles to convert their client's data according to their printer devices at all but move this responsibility to their clients.

Should it not be a less destructive workflow to send RGB data in a less-reducing profile (e.g. ProPhotoRGB) and let the printer do the adaption according to its specific abilities + the selected paper?

[lacerto]

(...)