# Soft proofing question form a novice



## chris45 (Oct 20, 2015)

I have recently set up Lightroom 6.1 with a Windows 10 PC and Eizo CS240 monitor.  I am new to using this software.
I have a question regarding one function of soft proofing in the Develop module that I cannot find a satisfactory answer to despite thoroughly researching books and the Internet.

Why when I select sRGB as a destination profile does the soft proof image not change to show what the image will look like with an sRGB display (similarly with the AdobeRGB (1998) profile)?

The out of gamut warnings all behave as I would expect and the image does change appearance when other (printer/paper) profiles are chosen.  I suspect the answer to this question will fill a gap in my knowledge of how Lightroom works so I am interested to find the answer.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

That is probably because the image doesn't have many colors that fall outside the sRGB color gamut. The fact that Lightroom uses a very wide color gamut doesn't necessarily mean that a particular image also actually contains these very saturated colors. Try to find an image with very saturated colors (make them temporarily even more saturated for the experiment) and then try what happens if you soft proof to sRGB.


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## chris45 (Oct 20, 2015)

That was a good idea- I increased the saturation and the out of gamut destination warnings increased a lot but I still do not see any change in the appearance of the soft proof image in the develop module when I select the sRGB or AdobeRGB profiles.  I do when I select other and then select a printer profile.
This makes me suspect that I am doing something wrong or have set this up incorrectly.

When I select the sRGB profile I get lots of out of gamut warnings but the image is exactly the same- I am expecting to see a much less vibrant image that emulates what it will appear like on a sRGB display.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

What is the color space of your monitor? You said it's an Eizo but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a wide gamut monitor. Or perhaps it is, but it is set to sRGB right now. If your monitor is close to sRGB, it makes sense that you don't see a difference.


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## chris45 (Oct 20, 2015)

Sorry I should have said.  I have a wide gamut display set to its native setting which has a bigger colour space than sRGB so I should see a difference.
Also, when I export the image file as a jpeg and then view it with my laptop that is a standard screen I do notice a big difference (the sort of difference that I would expect to see with sRGB soft proofing on my Eizo).


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

It depends on how the conversion is done. If you see a lot of out-of-gamut warnings, then those are the colors that don't fit inside sRGB and so they will be different. The other colors are fine, so they won't have to change. They will change if you use a perceptual intend, but won't change if you use relative colorimatric. http://www.color-management-guide.c...l-relative-colorimetric-rendering-intent.html

I'm not completely sure if these intends also apply to conversions between these RGB working spaces, though. It's mainly meant for conversion to printer profiles. http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/matrix-profiles-perceptual.html


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## chris45 (Oct 20, 2015)

Ok, I appreciate your time on this but can you answer this question:
Does the sRGB profile in soft proof on your set up show a change in the appearance of the image that matches what you would expect to see if you viewed the image with an sRGB monitor?  (Mine doesn't change at all- it just shows gamut warnings)

Unless I have got the wrong end of the stick I am under the impression that soft proofing is designed to show the user what the image will look like when exported to different media (display or print).  The two profiles that show up in the soft proof profile are sRGB and AdobeRGB (1998)- I think that these are to show what the image will look like on a display that has sRGB or AdobeRGB.  However, I am a novice and I may have misinterpreted the function of all these controls.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

Turn off gamut warnings. You will see _those_ colors change, just as expected. On my (wide gamut) monitor I see the same as you: only out-of-gamut colors change visibly, the rest of the image stays the same.


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## LouieSherwin (Oct 20, 2015)

Hi,

Check out these two tutorials by digital color expert Andrew Rodney. I think that they will give you a better idea how to interpret the softproof workflow in Lightroom.

Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video

Lightroom 4 and soft proofing video part 2

-louie


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## chris45 (Oct 20, 2015)

Ok that is very helpful.
I had already tried what you suggest and there is not the slightest change in the appearance of the image even when I zoom in to check different parts of the image.
It is the same with all the RGB profiles available.

I notice that the histogram moves when I select different profiles (even with RGB profiles) but the image doesn't change.
However, the image does change when I move the histogram manually.

There is something wrong somewhere and I suspect that it is with the way I have set things up but I think maybe we might be getting closer to a solution.


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## chris45 (Oct 21, 2015)

Thanks for the links but I have probably looked at almost every video and blog on the Internet to try to find a solution to my problem.
Some things that I have noticed are:

The RGB numbers are different in the before(master copy) and after (sRGB or AdobeRGB profile) proof preview.
The histogram changes when I select sRGB or AdobeRGB but the image appearance doesn't
The image appearance changes when I manually change the histogram
The profiles for AdobeRGB and sRGB (which is presumably what Lightroom is using) in the Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color folder have a size of zero (0kb)


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 21, 2015)

The RGB number *should* be different. The same color has a different RGB-value when mapped in sRGB space versus AdobeRGB space, so this is exactly how it's supposed to be. The histogram is a graphical display of those numbers, so a change in the histogram is also as expected. 

Why do you expect *all* the colors to change? Only colors that are out of gamut for sRGB will have to change, but there is no reason why in-gamut colors would. That is exactly what color management does: making sure that colors change as little as possible between devices. You are trying to find a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

The reason why you do see a change when you soft proof with a printer profile is because printers aren't using RGB colors but CMYK colors and because the whiteness of the paper is also taken into account. RGB colors and CMYK colors look different and that is what the soft proof tries to simulate.


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## chris45 (Oct 21, 2015)

Ok, I get what you are saying and it is helpful to my understanding of how displays and printers manage colour.
I was not querying the change in RGB numbers or histogram.  I was basically saying that this is what I would expect to have happen.
I think the problem I have is that the image does not change at all even by a miniscule amount and even if I zoom in on out-of-gamut parts.

Anyway Johan, may I thank you for all your time and help on this matter.
Chris


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 21, 2015)

I wouldn't worry about it unless you have a real reason to believe that something is wrong. Remember that 'out of gamut' is an all or nothing situation. A color is out of gamut, or it's not. You have no indication how much. So if it's out of gamut it could be by a very tiny amount, so that any change to bring it in gamut might be practically invisible to the human eye.


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