Hey everyone! I am looking for some help in understanding the role of profiles. I have done all of my prints using Bay Photo Lab so far. My question is, with all the different mediums you can print on there, how does one profile even begin to simulate those different options? I have seen where a printer/paper combo will have a profile. I’m just wondering if it is worth going through the hassle of soft proofing with the ICC profile applied or if I should just make some consistent adjustments (slight increases to contrast, brightness, and vibrance, I am planning to use a method shared in a video by @Sean_Bagshaw).
Those of you who have printed with shops like Bay Photo, do you have them do any adjustments after the fact or do you just send them the jpeg?
I understand the best course of action here is probably a bit of trial and error, I’m just trying to limit the number of errors!
1 Like
Hey Dave! I don’t have any experience with Bay Photo Lab in particular, but in general, I definitely think it’s worthwhile to do soft proofing using ICC profiles.
That said, I think you’ll find that some media require you to make fewer adjustments to your photos than others before printing. For example, when I print on Canon Luster paper, I really don’t have to do much - just lift the exposure and open up the shadows just a bit. However, if you’re printing on something with a mat finish, or on something that has a bit more warmth or coolness to it, you’ll need to work the image more.
I think this could work as a shortcut if you find a medium that you consistently use for prints, but I would think of it as a starting point. Personally, I would still do a final check using the appropriate ICC profile.
1 Like
I second what Nick said and want to add that perhaps the most useful part of soft proofing is seeing what colors are out of gamut (i.e. the printer is unable to print that color on that paper). From there, you can make better informed decisions on rendering intent (e.g. perceptual will shift all colors, relative colormetric will shift just out of gamut colors) or manually adjusting those areas yourself. If an out of gamut area is a large/important part of the photograph, I’ll often do a hard proof on a 5x7 of just that area to see what it looks like.
Does anyone have resources that were helpful as the learned this process? What I’m finding is that I’m really confused moving from the point where I like the image into sharpening, resizing, and finally preparing for print. I need a repeatable process and I don’t have that yet so I’m open to all help!
It is extremely confusing! If it helps, that’s normal 
I bought 2 video tutorials from @Mark_Metternich and found them invaluable. Here’s a link to his page: https://www.markmetternich.com/VIDEO-TUTORIALS/VIDEO-TUTORIALS-PAGE
“MASTERING FINE ART PRINTING and COLOR MANAGEMENT” directly addresses what you’re talking about with color management, and " THE ULTIMATE SHARPENING WORKFLOW FOR FINE ART PRINTING" is great for sharpening.
@Brent_Clark That’s funny, I just emailed him yesterday asking for some more info on those. Trying to decicde if that is the best route or setting up a 1:1 with him to go over it.
Thanks for the suggestions!
1 Like
Don’t forget to calibrate your monitor. Otherwise the lab will see a different image than what you’re seeing.
Thanks @Igor_Doncov I have it calibrated using DisplayCal…hopefully with the right settings! That program has a ton of options so I hope I set it up right, if I did, then colors should be accurate. I just sent a test print to Bay Photo today to see how it looks.
@David_Wallace - I’m sure Mark will be able to get you dialed in. Bay Photo is great for efficiency, cost and options with good enough results. I use their profile for soft proofing for both prints on paper and canvas and have had good results with both. Of course, you’d expect a different profile for different print outputs…and I would prefer that. But Bay does a huge volume and isn’t catering to the highest fine art standard I don’t think. Lower volume/more niche labs like HD Aluminum or Nevada Art Printers have dedicated profiles, a more hands-on workflow and certain specialties. I know Mark has a lot of experience with Nevada Art Printers and how to proof with their profiles.
@Sean_Bagshaw that makes a lot of sense. When I look at the different websites, the two you mentioned have more of a “mom and pop” feel to them. My guess is that working a process out with Bay Photo is probably the best bang for my buck right now, but once I get my sea legs moving on to a more personalized service would make sense. It would be cool to find a local shop that prints at such a high standard, but my guess is those are becoming harder and harder to find.
1 Like
https://www.color-management-guide.com/color-settings-photoshop.html.
Use this tool guide for setting up photoshop for printing with outstanding color. …Jim
Thanks for this @Jim_Zablotny I am going to have to look it over and see how it compares to what I currently have and if I need to change anything!
Thanks
I’m having some real challenges over here… 
I’m going to try to be as detailed as possible, it probably won’t be enough but I’m looking for anything at this point.
I do all of my work on an iMac which I have calibrated with the i1 Display Studio, I set the brightness to 100 cd/m. Recently I sent a print to Bay Photo for one of their free test prints to help with ensuring my monitor and the prints line up as close as possible. I used the steps shared by @Sean_Bagshaw in some of his videos of adding a screen layer around 15%, as well as a few points of contrast and vibrance. For the test print it came out really close. It was a little dark but not bad at all, I could up the screen layer to probably 18-20% and it would have been fine. Bay photo suggests using the test print to make adjustments to the brightness of your screen, so I did, bumped it up a few points, not much.
Fast forward to my next test. I had a friend reach out wanting a print on metal. I let them know I had never done that and printing was a new experience for me so we agreed to take it slow lol…I sent in for the test metal prints where you can see the different finishes. When I got these prints back they were SO DARK! Now, this was a night sky image so I expected some of that but there were entire sections that were just…black. Like to the point where when I tried to adjust my screen to match the print, I couldn’t even make it that dark. Figuring out printing may be the most frustrating experience with this hobby yet!
Luckily Bay Photo is going to reprint the images because I had the color correction included (which they suggest for metal prints). I am hoping they can send me the adjustments they make because I need to take it from the 4x6 samples to a larger print also. I don’t know if I’m venting or looking for help…but I really want to get this figured out.
Why not just get your own printer and do your own printing? Less hassle but initially it’s pricier.
1 Like
Right now price and space would be barriers, but the immediate feedback would be greatly appreciated!
1 Like
I have my own printer so I’m able to get really acquainted with what my images should look like on my screen to look good in print, but it’s definitely not cheap.
For canvas or metal prints, I guess all I can say is I share your pain, David. When I place those orders I kind of do a “finger in the wind” guess based on the same settings I do for my prints at home. I haven’t had one come out really badly and no customers have complained, so I think that’s good enough.
I highly suggest you never allow someone else to do color correction on your images for any reason. That option is definitely not for people that can write or understand a sentence like “I do all of my work on an iMac which I have calibrated with the i1 Display Studio, I set the brightness to 100 cd/m” .
Printing out really dark images in particular is pretty challenging, I think screens are able to show shadow detail much better than physical media (making those trendy super dark and moody photos pretty tough). Could you perhaps start with something that is primarily midtones/highlights?
@David_Wallace - I feel your pain, but hang in there. It’s why they call it an “art”. Ha.
A few ideas. Consider the lighting on the print. Sometimes an area of a print that looks completely blocked up black actually has detail when well lit. The amount of lighting on a print can make a massive difference in how the print looks.
Are you soft-proofing with a profile? Certain colors and tonal gradations aren’t possible with certain print types and media…so just because you can see them on screen doesn’t mean there is a way to achieve it in all prints. The more extreme colors, dark details and contrasts the more likely that something won’t be able to translate exactly. Soft-proofing can’t necessarily fix everything but at least you’ll get a heads up of where the challenges lie.
For bringing out dark detail in a print without lightening the highlights and midtones I will often do the same screen layer approach you did, but put a darks luminosity mask on the layer so the adjustment only goes to the darkest areas.
I’m not super familiar with Bay Photo metal prints. My go-to for metal is HD Aluminum. I get just about dead-on results from them and their ICC profile is very helpful when soft-proofing.
Keep getting after it!
2 Likes
@Brent_Clark this made me laugh…It is part of what is frustrating me though is I feel like I’m looking in the right places and getting things set up “correctly” and then it comes back so far off. To be clear, I don’t add that on my prints normally, they suggest it for metal prints, I think because they are different than what people usually print on. I think part of what has me so confused is that with this same setup I got something really close (this image was much more even distributed across the histogram than a night image) to what I expected and this one was wildly different.
@Sean_Bagshaw thats a good point about lighting. I looked at it in a few different rooms under different ambient lighting conditions, I never really put direct light onto it though. Here is what I don’t understand about softproofing…the videos I have seen on YouTube make it seem like you are pulling up the two versions of the image. The first is your edited version, the second is the version with the profile applied to it. Then you take the version with the profile and edit it to the point where it matches the original version. Is that right, or are you just looking at it to see what information isn’t going to translate in print, then adjusting your original image ? If anyone has resources on how to properly softproof that would be awesome to look over.
You’ve got the main idea. We edit images for the screen and then we soft-proof from there to try to get the print to match what we see on the screen. When viewing an image on screen with the printer profile applied we are seeing a simulation of what the print will look like. If we can get the simulation to better match how we developed it for the screen then the print should match closer also. However, depending on the image content and the type of print, certain colors and contrast may just not be possible to print no matter what you do, so we get as close as we can. I think the soft-proofing tools in Lightroom are really helpful. I give a basic runthrough of how I use them here: https://youtu.be/-m07uDBheT0?t=51
1 Like
@Sean_Bagshaw Really helpful, thank you! I think I have to just settle in for a bit of a journey here. I am not always described as patient…I think one thing I need to do is just print more often. Even printing 4x6 or 4x5 images a few times a month just to get the repetition and practice whether I actually like the image or not is almost irrelevant.
2 Likes