# sunshine on birds printing as cloudy



## magician john (Dec 7, 2017)

Operating System:High Sierra 
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):LR Classic 

I have some bird photos that on my iMac look like they are in the sunshine.
When they print on Epson Glossy Paper on my Epson xp 760 printer, they look more like it was a cloudy day. 
The screen brightness is set to only 4 (out of 16) so not due to excessive brightness on my screen.
If I increase the Exposure on the birds, yes they get lighter, but still don't look like they are in the sunshine and looked slightly washed out. (I use this phrase just to give you an idea of what I mean although not really washed out)

How would I increase the sunshine on the birds in Develop so almost overdoing it on the screen and hopefully print the photos looking like they were in the sunshine?

How can I replicate the sunshine more when I print or keep the sunshine when I print the photos?

thanks

p.s. I wasn't sure whether this should have been sent to the Output Module, and when choosing that Module, came up with an Error message couldn't find, so carried on sending to Develop Module.


----------



## Cerianthus (Dec 7, 2017)

To match a print to screen as much as possible there are a few steps

Is your monitor hardware calibrated?
Do you have a correct printer profile installed? Did you soft-proof to that profile?
Did you print to the correct profile(applying it only once, not in both LR and the driver


----------



## magician john (Dec 7, 2017)

Cerianthus said:


> To match a print to screen as much as possible there are a few steps
> 
> Is your monitor hardware calibrated?
> Do you have a correct printer profile installed? Did you soft-proof to that profile?
> Did you print to the correct profile(applying it only once, not in both LR and the driver



No, my monitor is not hardware calibrated. Have heard that it makes very little difference unless you do it professionally.
I have the Epson printer profile installed and select the printer profile and paper when printing. I did not soft proof and have done so since receiving your message and cannot see any difference between the two photos.
Can you clarify the last comment please re applying it only once etc.
thank you


----------



## Cerianthus (Dec 7, 2017)

Did you check the 'simulate paper' checkbox?

I'm not sure with your calibration remark. Using a spider or xrite puck is quite easy. 

The last one. If you set your print profile in lightroom make sure the same profile is not also set in the printer driver. I don't know how the Epsom driver works but there should be a no colour management setting.


----------



## Tony Jay (Dec 8, 2017)

There are plenty of possible reasons for your observations.
Some have been suggested already.

However, something that is not always appreciated by newbies to printing is that the Dmax of a monitor and the Dmax of a printed image on paper are orders of magnitude different.
The Dmax is simply the difference between the darkest tone and the lightest tone that can be achieved by a particular medium. 
No photographic paper can compete with a monitor with respect to Dmax. This is because a monitor is an example of a transmissive medium and paper is an example of a reflective medium.

I am not sure that you appreciate the point of soft-proofing - just enabling it does NOT change the outputted print.
You will want to check the paper simulation box as well.
The point of soft-proofing is to allow one to see - on the monitor - how an image might look when printed.
Generally, we refer to the soft-proof button as the "Make my Image look like Crap" button.

What generally happens is a big reduction in contrast that can make the image look washed out and it will often look a bit darker than before. Colour shifts will often occur as the gamut of the paper/ink combination may not be able to represent all the colour in the image.
The point of soft-proofing is to address these various issues.
What one needs to do is to have the master image side-by-side with the soft-proof copy. Doing this enables one to make any edits that are required to restore the soft-proof copy to as close a representation to the master as is possible...

If, and only if, your monitor is properly calibrated and set an appropriate luminance for the lighting conditions in which you edit, then printing an appropriately edited soft-proof copy will closely appproximate what the master copy looks like on the monitor. This is important enough to repeat - if a monitor is not correctly calibrated then everything with respect to printing just becomes a guessing game...

Tony Jay


----------



## Gnits (Dec 8, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> There are plenty of possible reasons


 ......

Well summarised.  

Also ... many people under appreciate the value of soft proofing their images (in Lr or Ps) ....
..... see this tutorial ...Video Tutorial – Soft Proofing in Lightroom 4


----------



## magician john (Dec 8, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> There are plenty of possible reasons for your observations.
> Some have been suggested already.
> 
> However, something that is not always appreciated by newbies to printing is that the Dmax of a monitor and the Dmax of a printed image on paper are orders of magnitude different.
> ...


Thanks Tony,

To check whether I have done the soft proof bit correctly, I have got in Develop, ticked the soft proof box and hit the Y key and the two images come up side by side. Is this right?
If it is, then they look pretty similar to me and can't see any adjustment is needed on the screen.

Both yourself and Cerianthus mention "paper simulation box" Where do I find this please and what does it do?


----------



## Anthony.Ralph (Dec 8, 2017)

magician john said:


> Thanks Tony,
> 
> To check whether I have done the soft proof bit correctly, I have got in Develop, ticked the soft proof box and hit the Y key and the two images come up side by side. Is this right?
> If it is, then they look pretty similar to me and can't see any adjustment is needed on the screen.
> ...



When you use the soft proof, what profile do you use?
Paper simulation is what the names implies and there is a tick box for it under the profile and intent lines.

Anthony.


----------



## magician john (Dec 8, 2017)

Anthony.Ralph said:


> When you use the soft proof, what profile do you use?
> Paper simulation is what the names implies and there is a tick box for it under the profile and intent lines.
> 
> Anthony.


Found the tick box and yes it is ticked.

Re the profile- Epson 860-760 series photo glossy.
is this what you ask for?


----------



## Anthony.Ralph (Dec 8, 2017)

magician john said:


> Found the tick box and yes it is ticked.
> 
> Re the profile- Epson 860-760 series photo glossy.
> is this what you ask for?



The reason for asking is sometimes the profile being selected doesn't match the paper being used and is always worth checking in discussions like these. 

Anthony


----------



## magician john (Dec 9, 2017)

Anthony.Ralph said:


> The reason for asking is sometimes the profile being selected doesn't match the paper being used and is always worth checking in discussions like these.
> 
> Anthony


I have gone through the soft proof process this morning, ensured the Simulation box is ticked, got the correct printer and paper profile and printed some photos.
They are berries/fruits, some red some purple.
Especially the purple berries had a lot of the red gamut warning and I reduced the purple and magenta saturation in the HSL and printed. They came out very washy colour. I did a comparison print without any soft proofing and they printed in a much more acceptable colour, being more intense and vibrant than the soft proofed photos.
At this stage then, summing up, it seems the better colour reproduction came from the normal printed, unsoftproofed copies.
How does this happen?
is there something I should have done as well?
Grateful for some clarification.


----------



## Tony Jay (Dec 9, 2017)

If your monitor is not properly calibrated then everything is just a guess...
One cannot make any assumptions about what is seen on the monitor being reflected in a print.


----------



## magician john (Dec 9, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> If your monitor is not properly calibrated then everything is just a guess...
> One cannot make any assumptions about what is seen on the monitor being reflected in a print.


Tony, are you saying that if I got my screen calibrated, then the colours, after soft proofing would be better than those I have printed without the soft proofing?
I have been looking at the x-rite colour munki display for the screen calibration. Would this be ok?


----------



## LouieSherwin (Dec 9, 2017)

There is a lot of misleading and plain incorrect information about color management out on the web including but not limited to soft-proofing. The advice you had about not calibrating your monitor is a good example. Also soft proofing is no exception.



Gnits said:


> Also ... many people under appreciate the value of soft proofing their images (in Lr or Ps) ....
> ..... see this tutorial ...Video Tutorial – Soft Proofing in Lightroom 4



Julieanne's video is a great explanation for how the soft-proffing works in Lightroom. However, her advice to correct/adjust to remove the out of gamut warning is not good advice. 

Even with calibrated monitor and a good print profile your saturated colors will still get washed out results if you attempt to use Lightroom adjustments to remove the color gamut warnings. This is because Lightroom adjustments are global, ie. effect all the pixels in the selection, either the whole image or those selected by the local adjustment tools. So moving the saturation slider will squash the saturation of all the pixels not just those that are out of gamut.

You will always get much better results by having a good monitor and print profiles and letting the color management system (CMS)  handle the adjustments. This is because when sending the image data to a profiled output device the CMS will basically deal with just the out of gamut pixels and leave the rest alone. For an in-depth tutorial of exactly why this is so including 3D graphs of image colors I recommend the following two videos.

Video tutorial: Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video
Video tutorial: Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video part 2

For further information for how to optimize your monitor calibration to more accurately represent your prints try this video tutorial:

Video tutorial: Why are my prints too dark

-louie


----------



## magician john (Dec 10, 2017)

LouieSherwin said:


> There is a lot of misleading and plain incorrect information about color management out on the web including but not limited to soft-proofing. The advice you had about not calibrating your monitor is a good example. Also soft proofing is no exception.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank Louie,
so basically are you saying that I would not be any better off if I purchased the Calibration tool and also not to adjust the saturation. 
This still leaves me my original question re the photo on the screen looking like it is in sunshine, yet when printed it looses the appearance of the sunshine and look more matt.

I have looked at the third video and to be quite honest it went straight over my head.


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Dec 10, 2017)

magician john said:


> I would not be any better off if I purchased the Calibration tool and also not to adjust the saturation.



I think you have misinterpreted what Louie said. Louie was saying that the advice you found that claimed calibrating is useless was bad advice, as was the advice to remove the out-of-gamut warning while soft proofing. 

You are _always_ better off calibrating your screen. If you don't, then you can have no confidence that what you see when you edit will match what you see when you print (or send an image to the web or a friend).


----------



## LouieSherwin (Dec 10, 2017)

magician john said:


> so basically are you saying that I would not be any better off if I purchased the Calibration tool and also not to adjust the saturation.



Sorry that is not what I was trying to convey. In order to reliably deal with color is to calibrate your monitor with a good colorimeter using the supplied profile building software and use a good quality print profile for you printer/paper. This is the only way to achieve the goal where the colors seen on your monitor are any where close to what you end up printing. 

As a separate issue I was addressing the technique demonstrated in Julieanne Kost's tutorial on soft proofing where she uses the saturation slider to remove the out of gamut warning as seen in Lightroom. This is a lousy technique if you wish to maintain color quality in your image. As you discovered it desaturated all the colors and made the resulting image look flat. 

The best way to deal with out of gamut colors is to simply let the color management system (CMS) handle them. This is one of the things it is designed to to. The videos that I referred to explain exactly why this so. However, this assumes that you are using good quality profiles for you monitor and and printer. 

So the place to start as others have also pointed out is purchase and start using a monitor profiling device. I hope that this clarifies previous post.

The good news here is that you are seeing distinctions in that you probably were not aware of before. The bad news is that it means you have to dig into your pocket a bit to be able to tune you system to match your ability.

-louie


----------



## magician john (Dec 10, 2017)

LouieSherwin said:


> Sorry that is not what I was trying to convey. In order to reliably deal with color is to calibrate your monitor with a good colorimeter using the supplied profile building software and use a good quality print profile for you printer/paper. This is the only way to achieve the goal where the colors seen on your monitor are any where close to what you end up printing.
> 
> As a separate issue I was addressing the technique demonstrated in Julieanne Kost's tutorial on soft proofing where she uses the saturation slider to remove the out of gamut warning as seen in Lightroom. This is a lousy technique if you wish to maintain color quality in your image. As you discovered it desaturated all the colors and made the resulting image look flat.
> 
> ...


I am using the Epson profiles that come with the specific printer. Is this " good quality profiles"?
thank you for your help


----------



## Tony Jay (Dec 10, 2017)

magician john said:


> I am using the Epson profiles that come with the specific printer. Is this " good quality profiles"?
> thank you for your help


They may be...but the first thing is to make sure that one actually use the paper that matches the particular ICC profile.

Tony Jay


----------



## magician john (Dec 11, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> They may be...but the first thing is to make sure that one actually use the paper that matches the particular ICC profile.
> 
> Tony Jay


I have Epson paper and match that to the profile. So I believe this is ok.
Still doesn't answer to me what makes the photo look like it has sunshine on it on my screen, yet matt and no sunshine on the print. The colour don't look that much different, just that effect and if I add some Exposure, then the photo just looks washed out, so that is not the answer.


----------



## Tony Jay (Dec 11, 2017)

magician john said:


> I have Epson paper and match that to the profile. So I believe this is ok.
> Still doesn't answer to me what makes the photo look like it has sunshine on it on my screen, yet matt and no sunshine on the print. The colour don't look that much different, just that effect and if I add some Exposure, then the photo just looks washed out, so that is not the answer.


I explained the likely problem several posts back.
I could probably sort the problem in a few seconds on my system if I had the same image file.
Understanding how to edit a soft-proof copy appropriately so that a subsequent print of the soft-proof copy resembles the master copy takes real time and effort - a true learning curve.

Underpinning this a good understanding and application of a colour-managed workflow.
There are no shortcuts here...

Tony jay


----------



## Gnits (Dec 11, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> There are no shortcuts here...



Confusion and frustration will reign if the fundamentals of colour management are not understood.  It can also be expensive on paper, ink and time. It is not difficult to grasp, but can appear daunting when dipping your toe into the water. It is worth the effort.


----------



## magician john (Dec 11, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> I explained the likely problem several posts back.
> I could probably sort the problem in a few seconds on my system if I had the same image file.
> Understanding how to edit a soft-proof copy appropriately so that a subsequent print of the soft-proof copy resembles the master copy takes real time and effort - a true learning curve.
> 
> ...


Tony, When I have the image in soft proof mode there is no out of gamut colouring red or blue at all, and when viewed side by side, they are identical.(well as good as so). A lot has been mentioned about soft proofing and I have taken onboard the constructive help that has been offered and have learnt a lot from it. As the images look comparable, with no gamut colouring showing, this surely suggests that by further soft proofing alone,the situation will not be resolved?


----------



## Replytoken (Dec 11, 2017)

Do you happen to have a clogged head on your printer?  Have you tried to print anything else?  Have those files printed OK?

--Ken


----------



## LouieSherwin (Dec 11, 2017)

magician john said:


> No, my monitor is not hardware calibrated. Have heard that it makes very little difference unless you do it professionally.



As repeatedly suggested you will need to purchase a colorimeter and profile your monitor to ever have a hope of resolving your problem. There may in fact be another underlying issue but it will be impossible to diagnose without taking this step. 

The problem is that without a valid monitor profile you are creating essentially mystery RGB values when editing in Lightroom that have no correlation to natural vision. The problem you are experiencing is exactly why color management systems were invented. Before CMS's were implemented (early Photoshop days) people were struggling as you are to get their edited images to print. 

The fundamental problem is that the RGB number to get a specific shade of purple to show on your monitor is different than the 
RGB number to get the same shade of purple to print on your printer. The CMS will handle this for you but have to have the prerequisites, a monitor profile and a print profile. The Epson printer profiles are a good starting point but you still need a monitor profile.

-louie


----------



## magician john (Dec 7, 2017)

Operating System:High Sierra 
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):LR Classic 

I have some bird photos that on my iMac look like they are in the sunshine.
When they print on Epson Glossy Paper on my Epson xp 760 printer, they look more like it was a cloudy day. 
The screen brightness is set to only 4 (out of 16) so not due to excessive brightness on my screen.
If I increase the Exposure on the birds, yes they get lighter, but still don't look like they are in the sunshine and looked slightly washed out. (I use this phrase just to give you an idea of what I mean although not really washed out)

How would I increase the sunshine on the birds in Develop so almost overdoing it on the screen and hopefully print the photos looking like they were in the sunshine?

How can I replicate the sunshine more when I print or keep the sunshine when I print the photos?

thanks

p.s. I wasn't sure whether this should have been sent to the Output Module, and when choosing that Module, came up with an Error message couldn't find, so carried on sending to Develop Module.


----------



## magician john (Dec 11, 2017)

Replytoken said:


> Do you happen to have a clogged head on your printer?  Have you tried to print anything else?  Have those files printed OK?
> 
> --Ken


other than this situation, printer is good.


----------



## LouieSherwin (Dec 11, 2017)

I still think that the core of your problem is not using a good monitor profile.

However, it could be helpful if you posted one of  the raw files where you are having a problem. If you export it as a DNG  and make sure you save your ACR settings we can also see what develop settings are that you are using. 

I'm not sure the best sharing service to use. It could be a public folder in DropBox.

Perhaps there something in there that is making the problem worse.

-louie


----------



## Replytoken (Dec 11, 2017)

magician john said:


> other than this situation, printer is good.


That's good.  Just wanted to check as I have had clogged nozzles in the past and they can create quite "interesting" images.

Good luck,

--Ken


----------



## LRList001 (Dec 11, 2017)

magician john said:


> Tony, When I have the image in soft proof mode there is no out of gamut colouring red or blue at all, and when viewed side by side, they are identical.(well as good as so). A lot has been mentioned about soft proofing and I have taken onboard the constructive help that has been offered and have learnt a lot from it. As the images look comparable, with no gamut colouring showing, this surely suggests that by further soft proofing alone,the situation will not be resolved?



I have been watching this thread and the advice you are getting is very good.  However, I am wondering if you have got something more fundamental wrong.  Not using LR at all, can you print a jpeg to your printer and get a reasonable output?  Now open that same jpeg in LR and print it?  Is it any good?  Sure you should calibrate the monitor and fix out of gamut colours, but if you have a gross error then until you fix that, those things are likely to make the matter not much better.  Once you can get a reasonable print doing simple things, then you should start to correct what is discussed here.  To start with (and I am going to get a lot of flak for this), I suggest you run sRGB everywhere.  Once you can get sRGB prints working well and understand how to do the rest, then start to use the full capabilities of other colour spaces.


----------



## Tony Jay (Dec 11, 2017)

magician john said:


> Tony, When I have the image in soft proof mode there is no out of gamut colouring red or blue at all, and when viewed side by side, they are identical.(well as good as so). A lot has been mentioned about soft proofing and I have taken onboard the constructive help that has been offered and have learnt a lot from it. As the images look comparable, with no gamut colouring showing, this surely suggests that by further soft proofing alone,the situation will not be resolved?


I don't see the problem as being out-of-gamut colours at all.
A big part of the issue is the loss of contrast in a print as compared to the same image being displayed by a monitor.
Soft-proofing is key to dealing with this issue.

The more I think of it, the clearer it is to me that we need to see the raw image in order to truly understand the issues as the OP sees them. Without any of us having an opportunity to manipulate this image in Lightroom all the advice we are giving is just theoretical...

Tony Jay


----------



## Conrad Chavez (Dec 11, 2017)

Looking at this from another angle...magician john, if you look at the photo in Develop and move the pointer over the bright areas that are in sunshine, what are the RGB values displayed under the histogram? Are they around 90-100%, 70-90%, or something else?


----------

