# What does Perceptual and Relative mean (in the print module) please?



## newmoon (May 18, 2011)

Hello
First post, and straight in with some questions!
We've been struggling trying to get prints that vaguely match what's on the screen (despite using a Colormunki), but made a giant leap this evening, and got there!
We're using an Epson 3880 printer and after some initial disappointment found out that the paper we were using was not intended for pigment inks. We also turned down the brightness of the screen.
So we bought some Epson Fine Art Ultrasmooth paper, downloaded the Epson premium (I think they are called) profiles an it works well.
Three questions though:
In the Lightroom Print Job section, under Color Management, there is a 'Rendering Intent' question, with the options 'Perceptual' or 'Relative'. 
Can someone tell us what this is about please?
Also there are two Epson profiles that come with the download file for this paper, one 1440 and the other 2880. Presumably these are resolutions - will it make much difference which we use (we chose 2880 so haven't tried 1440 yet)?
Finally we couldn't get Lightroom to show A3+ paper (it stubbornly remained on A4) even though the Printer set-up was on A3+.  Fortunately we had preview set so found out before it printed.Eventually we managed to get an A3+ preview and print, but more by accident than intent, and I'm not sure what we did to change it, and Lightroom was still showing A4! Any idea what we needed to do to get Lightroom to pick up the correct paper size?
Thanks for any advice, and apologies for diving in with questions on my first post.


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## b_gossweiler (May 18, 2011)

Welcome to the forums, Newmoon 

I can't elaborate on your specific printing questions, as I rarely ever print myself and don't own a good photo printer.

As far as the rendering intent goes, I think you can find a pretty good (and graphic) explanation here (look for the title "Perceptual & Relative Colorimetric Intent".

Beat


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## ernie (May 19, 2011)

Welcome to the forums and to the (complicated but shouldn't be) world of printing. Since Beat gave you a link to explain rendering intents I'll try to answer what I can of the rest. I use a Canon printer, but from memory, the 1440/2880 has to do with the DPI (not PPI) that the printer prints at. 2880 Dots per inch of ink.
In the left panel Of Lightroom at the bottom you will see "page setup" Go there and it will take you to your printer driver dialog boxes where you set the paper size, etc, etc. Do that first then LR will pick up your paper size.
LR makes printing easier than anything else I've tried. I'm by no means an expert at it though. But with LR you pretty much just tell it what you want and it does the rest.


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## newmoon (May 22, 2011)

Beat 
Thank you for your comments, and the link to Cambridgeincolour. It's a great website and excellent resource.


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## newmoon (May 22, 2011)

Thank you Ernie. I really don't know how I missed the Page Set section in the bottom left! Anyway you are right, this has to clicked for LR to actually change the page settings, even though when you open Page Setup the settings are correct. It doesn't alter the settings shown to the left of the preview until Page Setup has been clicked.


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