Digital BW, The Print

Yes/no.  If you duplicate the image and then soft proof the duplicate
(pre-edits) you are seeing the original file "as it would appear IF
converted to the output/printer colour space".  You haven't yet done the
conversion and therefore nothing has yet changed.  I assume that you then go
ahead and either do the profile conversion to your "print copy" or actually
do it "on the fly" when you print.  The profile conversion is done for you
by Photoshop when you ask it to.  So yes when you ask it to do so PS handles
the conversion "automatically".  So far there is no difference between what
you are saying and what I am saying.  Whether you make a "print copy" or not
you and I are asking PS to convert the document's profile from the workspace
to the printer space and we are each taking a sneak peak at the output with
a soft proof.

When you say " adjust the soft-proofed view with adjustment layers to match
the original workspace view as closely as possible" all you are saying is
that when looking at the preview/soft proof you don't like the rendering of
the image that perceptual intent will give you when you go ahead with the
conversion and so you want to make some alterations before doing that and
printing.  That's fine.  It's only necessary of you don't like what the
profile conversion is going to give you.  Of course this is the whole point
of having a soft proof.  I omitted this for simplicity's sake.  For many
people, the rendition generated by perceptual intent is fine enough and if
this workflow is followed with QTR they will avoid the "flat and light"
prints problem which will be a big relief. (Hopefully the discussion has
also explained why it is avoided and why they shouldn't have had the problem
in the first place.)

Remember what perceptual intent aims to achieve: in lay terms, it attempts
to produce, within the smaller colour gamut (narrower tonal range in our
case) of the print space a rendition of the image which represents "desired
appearance" or even more simply a look which keeps the overall printed look
in balance with the way it looked in the broader space (but adjusted for the
narrower tonal range).  There is no prescription as to how his is to be
done.  One person writing a perceptual ICC profile could decide to manage
the problem differently from another person.  (A Gretag Macbeth perceptual
printer profile could be different to an Xrite profile even if they were fed
the same input data.)  If there are parts of the image which you don't want
altered you can always edit the print version to adjust them back.

(Note that in so doing you are compressing the necessary transitions further
into other parts of the greyscale.  If the end points, ie black and white,
are fixed by the printer/paper/ink's capabilities and you don't want, say
40% to 60% black to be altered then the compression in 0-40% and 60-100%
need to be greater.)


> From: jt <john.tunley@...>

> 
> Steve,
> 
> In Photoshop I would normally duplicate the image and then compare
> the workspace view with the softproofed view. I would then adjust
> the softproofed view with adjustment layers to match the original
> workspace view as closely as possible, then save that printer
> corrected image.
> 
> In your comment above, you seem to be implying that there is an
> automatic way of achieving this correction within Photoshop's colour
> management. Am I missing something?
> 
> Thanks,   John T
> 
>