Outstanding video, narrated with clarity and precision - super informative on a topic that is not broadly covered in AP. Thank you so much for this - it has been incredibly helpful.
Loved this, it covers pretty much any questions I had - can't wait to put this to use. I think you've saved me from quite some failed prints, so thank you! :D
I was searching for something else only slightly related, and ended up with this tutorial. This is one of the most informative description of soft proofing and how to deal with colour gamut and the dynamic range of paper vs backlit sources (monitors!) I've seen so far, thanks!
Just wanted to say thanks for this video. I've been using this technique for years to soft proof my photos for printing as C1's soft proof is not the best. Thanks again
At last: the terrors of the frighteningly mysterious 'soft proofing' explained - I wasn't even sure what it was, though I'll have watch it umpteen more times to make it sink in. Thank you.
Soft proofing is a dreadful subject because a lot of people who try to explain it don't understand it themselves. It took me quite a few years to piece together the basics so I could build on them.
That was once a detailed manual and very very descriptive. Step by step you can see what you can do to avoid disappointments while printing. Thank you very much!
Outstanding tutorial on soft proofing with Affinity. Hi have been wrestling with soft proofing for quite a while now and you have a way of explaining it perfectly, thank you, Robin
Great video. I was searching for an answer to one specific question, and you did answer it -- in the last 30 seconds! (Whether to print with the soft proof layer on or off.) Along the way I learned more about soft proofing, and especially about using the gamma check. Thanks!
Excellent presentation, comprehensive. I've been trying to figure out how AP soft proof actually works for more than a year. Now I have to go back and correct a lot of my image files ...
Spot on! Thank you for this concise video. This clears things up and takes care to not introduce more misunderstandings, while many other tutorials on color management and proofing do proliferate common misconceptions. Well done, keep up the good work!
I would like to add to the existing positive comments. Your instructive session serves as an excellent example of a "how to" video. You tell the learner what you are going to do and you waste little time in covering the steps involved as you make adjustments to the image. Your pacing is excellent and likely to keep the viewer engaged throughout; content is good; both video / audio quality are good; and dare I say, this is a well-scripted professional presentation. As one who produced many training and informational videos, I appreciate the skills your work displays.
Thank you very much. But if you do spot areas for improvement please let me know. I'm always trying to think of ways to make the videos more engaging. All suggestions welcomed.
@@RobinWhalley Hi Robin, yes it has very much. I knew of soft proofing, but not how to successfully remove the out of gamut range. I need to finish a photo for a competition and managed with your help to sort it out. Many thanks.
Another great video! I learned a lot from your educational shows and they help me a lot in understanding Affinity photo. Thanks! I also edit photos with this program and print them myself. I often got bad prints until I started editing photos and printing them as follows: - When I open photo.jpg in Affinity photo, for example it is in RGB / 8 format and in sRGB profile IEC61966-2.1 - After editing in the program, I would like to print the image with the EPSON printer ET8550 (L8180), for example, on Epson Premium semigloss photo paper. Therefore in Affinity photo, photo.jpg with profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1 I change by clicking on Document / Convert Format / ICCProfile… and under Profile I click ET8550 L8180 series Premium Semigloss and then on the Convert button. With this conversion, I changed the ICC profile on the document (photo) to one that is compatible with the paper or printer. In this case, it is not necessary to edit and correct the image with a soft proof layer, as the image is color-matched with paper and printer and no gray areas appear in the photo in Gamut check when confirmed in the checkbox. Since I have a spectracolorimeter, I can also make an accurate ICC for my printer or different types of paper and ink, so that everything is coordinated. I believe that a better footprint than the correct ICC for paper, printer and ink can provide and the image.jpg converted to ICC paper profile cannot be achieved anyway, as all other colors outside the ICC profile of paper and printer are incorrect colors at printing. - Now under Print in Propertis I set everything I need, the size and type of paper and under Advance, Without color adjustment. Then at the bottom of the Print window I set Color management and Color handling to Performed by app and Printer profile on ET8550 L8180 Series Premium Semigloss, as seen in Document profile. You can adjust the rendering intent to your liking and it has little effect on the image quality, sometimes the differences are almost imperceptible. Now that I have described my way of preparing for printing and printing I ask you and ask you for an answer. Namely, nowhere on the web have I noticed that the image was converted to the ICC profile of the paper before printing, although this gives excellent prints. Am I doing something completely wrong and is this in some way reducing the color gamut of the print? Thanks for the reply and I wish you many more successful videos!
Hi Marko, thanks for sharing your approach in such detail. No you aren't doing anything wrong but there is a limitation you are building in that could cause issues for you if you change your workflow. Here's what I think is happening in your workflow and why it works: ➡ The images you are working with are in the sRGB colour space which is a small colours space and can represent a narrower range of colours than the likes of Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB. ➡ It's highly likely that the paper, printer and ink combination you are using can also reproduce the sRGB colour space so there are no out of gamut colours and no changes needed to the image to print it. I did publish this article which might help to explain this further lenscraft.co.uk/photography-tutorials/which-icc-profile-should-i-use/. The limitation you have created is that you're restricting your colours to those of the smaller colour space. There are plenty of times in photography where this can damage subtle transitions between colours. You might argue that you are starting with the sRGB colour space and so not losing anything. But if you shot your original image in RAW format, the "damage" is done to the colours when apply the sRGB colour space (probably during RAW processing). I hope this helps.
@@RobinWhalley Hi Robin, thank you for taking the time to study my writing. I read your answer with interest and also your published article in the link. I have now changed the color space from sRGB to Adobe RGB on both of my cameras and will be shooting in this color range in the future. Later I will develop and print photos according to your suggestions, although even with "my" workflow I get quite satisfactory prints for me, also for the exhibition on the home wall, in A4 or A3 size, heh, heh. I hope that I will be able to get even better results with a large color space, RAW editing and softproof fixes. Best regards!
Seriously considering switching to Affinity after years of LR/PS and printing is an area for investigation. This video is probably one of the best I have ever seen on the task of soft proofing and shows that Affinity Photo makes this very straightforward. Another tick in the box of things to check before saying goodbye to Adobe. Now, if only Affinity did a DAM - Heh Hoh!
Serif were working on a LR replacement a year or two back but then there was no further mention. But if you need a good free asset manager to go with Affinity why not use Adobe Bridge. It probably does everything you want it to and you can integrate with Affinity Photo. I think I may need to publish something about this.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks for the reply Robin. I have looked at ACDSee but that seems unstable, crashed twice already, and is endlessly consuming 50% of CPU, indexing I think, so I'm giving up on that. Bridge, as you say, does most of what I need. Two principal downsides. 1) I'll have to manually recreate all my LR collections and smart collections. Laborious but doable thanks to Bridge seeing all of the existing keywords. 2) Bridge does not display thumbnails for .afphoto which is no great surprise. So live with that or use .tiff from Affinity with the save layers option selected. That is a bit messy but doable as you have to export initially. Many upsides to Bridge though e.g. the import images structure is there and it is easy to set Affinity Photo as the default editor for raw to name but two. Plus of course it's free! It would be great if Serif produced a DAM but I will not hold my breath on that. In the meantime does anyone know if Bridge can be configured display the afphoto thumbnail?? I doubt it but there are some clever people out there.
Excellent explanation and a huge help, than you! I am also curious to learn about how to find the correct profile for my particular paper and printer. Oddly, my printer is listed in the soft proof screen rather than the paper.
The paper profile you select must be the one for your print and paper combination. If you change papers or printer you will need a new profile. Assuming your not having bespoke profiles created for you, it's best to download the ones from the paper manufacturers website. I personally like to use Fotospeed or Permajet papers. Both of these companies offer a free bespoke profiling service which is excellent and best of all free.
Thank robin I've watched this twice now, its the best explanation of theSoft Proof feature in Affinity photo! Printing images on Matte paper is really hard eh? :-)
Excellent explanation and instructional video on how to get image within gamut using soft proofing. I would like to know what the blend modes do in soft proofing as I’ve used the “darken” mode to bring image back within gamut but it doesn’t seem to do anything when I save it as a tiff and reopen it again. I know it should be turned off for printing.
Good morning, Robin, and thanks for the prompt reply. I understand the difference between color and paper type profiles. The "Quallity and Media" panel appears in the print Dialogue box ( I'm on a Mac). So, would the procedure be to select the proper icc under the color sync panel and under print drive just select paper type i.e. glossy or luster,etc.?
Yes, that's correct. ColorSync section is for the ICC profile and they should all show (although you may need to select the more profiles option at the bottom of the list). I don't have a Quality and Media option on mine but I'm certain that's for the paper type.
This is beautifully explained, especially as I'm interested in this software. I am confused slightly though, as I always thought absolute intent was to be avoided when printing photographs. Even though absolute doesn't shift the colours of the image (unlike relative) this is not a good thing, as it doesn't take into account the white of the paper its being printed to, and so you get the wrong whites in your image.
Thanks, I'm pleased you liked it. And yes, you are correct about the Absolute rendering not shifting the points. BUT, from my print testing, the prints are the same as the screen. I did experiment with changing profiles and the Soft Proof layer appeared to be simulating the paper colour very closely. If I'm printing from Lightroom or Photoshop I usually use Relative or Perceptual but in Affinity, they don't seem to work as well. Perhaps it was my image (chosen because it was tricky to print) but the best print was using the Absolute rendering. It's a shame there isn't more information available from Affinity about this as I would love to understand it a little more.
@@RobinWhalley Totally fair enough Robin, and ultimately if the print is working then it's working! Maybe they work their Absolute intent a little differently, or maybe in this case it just didn't have any discernible negative effect anyway. Again thanks for the video, very informative, just like all your others. Best.
Great video and very helpful! I have to guess you are using custom color profiles. I'm using Affinity Photo, a Mac and a Canon pro-10 printer and do not find any profiles for my printer/paper when adding the soft proof layer or anywhere else except for the printer driver. Since I want Affinity to handle the colors I would like to soft proof for my printer paper combination but do not know how to find the profiles. Canon only seems to have them available to download for non-canon papers used with the pro-10. Any help would be wonderful!
I print using the profile that matches my paper and print combination. I also tend to use Fotospeed papers and they will produce a custom profile for your printer with their paper. It's free and does make a difference over some of the generic paper profiles. If you are struggling with profiles I would recommend trying some of their paper. Great quality and a free profile.
Thank you for very good explanation. I have a question: in the soft proof dialogue, all my installed icc's are present, but in the Print Panel under "quality and Media" only a few are present. I know about "color Management" panel with all the icc's, and I select the proper one. However, they are not preset in the "quality and Media" panal
Hi James, can I check that when you talk about the "Quality and Media" panel, you are referring to your print driver and not Affinity. Assuming you are, the reason you don't see the ICC presets is that the driver will only display paper profiles. The paper profiles are different to colour profiles and configure the printer for the type of paper you are using. For example, does it have a gloss or matte surface, how thick is it etc. The thing that confuses a lot of people is that printer manufacturers usually name these paper profiles to be very similar to their ICC profiles. If this doesn't answer your question, can you let me know a little more about how you get to the "Quality and Media" panel on your system?
The Best! Thank you. Two questions please: 1. If i send the image to an on line Lab, is good to use Absolute Colourmetric as Rendering intent or is needeed Percptual? 2. Is possible to use this Proofing process in AP to bypass the proofing process in Capture One that is strange? Thanks again. Gianluigi
Thanks. I'm pleased it helped. To answer your questions: 1. I would check with the print lab you are going to use. If they can't say, I suspect they will be using Perceptual rendering (but that's a guess). 2. You only need to Soft Proof once. If you find Affinity best then use that.
I would think the color model is more determinitive than the paper given the same parameters. That's why given the paper desired, working in offset at 175-200 dpi halftoning, we always rendered the image CMYK to a conversion curve fingerprinted to our presses and hard proofed that to the client for approval. If you end up with a 3% printer in the highlights of a color, is the printer or press actually able to hold that fine tone. Likewise, for a 90-95% printing color in the shadows as opposed to a 100% printer that posterizes. Coupled with the restricted reproduction spectrum of CMYK inks, it was always safer to proof from a CMYK converted image. Soft proofs were for content and positioning only, NOT color fidelity.
Hi Robin, Your video does an excellent job on explaining the soft proofing process. I have had good success using it on several photos. But, whenever the photo has reds, oranges, or blues I just cannot seem to get even close to the original. I have focused on using Curves and HSL to try to do this. Could you perhaps explain what I should be doing for reds, oranges and blues. the Best, Rich Pack
It's really going to depend on the colour space for the paper you are using. Some papers, especially matte paper struggle to deal with these colours. You can try shifting the hue or reducing the saturation a little but it can make a mess. It sounds to me like you might want to consider a different paper (and profile).
@@RobinWhalley Hi Robin, I have 8 images that I have been trying to soft proof using your video on Soft Proofing. I am new to Soft Proofing, so perhaps I am missing something critical. I have spent a lot of time with that video; I can get 3 images soft proofed to my satisfaction, but the others involve reds, blues, yellows, and oranges, and no matter what I try they just get worse. My default color space is sRGB IEC61966-2.1; I have also tried AdobeRGB (1968) and ROMM RGB. Both got worse. I would have tried ProPhoto RGB, but I can’t find it in the latest version of Affinity Photo. I am using the publisher WhiteWall. The paper is Fuji Crystal Professional Archive Maxima. They have provided the icc profile for this. I am looking for high quality on colors and details. This paper, according to WhiteWall has “Enormous color gamut.” This is a glossy paper. With an enormous color gamut, I am not clear on why I can’t see even some incremental improvement. My sense is that the Curves Adjustment is where I could best impact this. With that in mind I have tried a variety of things, but they always get worse. And that is the problem, I can’t even seem to get any form of incremental improvement. Any thoughts or ideas would be deeply appreciated. the Best, Rich Pack
Robin, thanks for a very informative video. I'm brand new to Affinity and I am unclear about the soft proof layer before printing. Should the layer be deleted prior to printing or is it sufficient simply to turn off its visibility? Thank you.
I've read a few comments you replied to that almost answered my question: Shouldn't you use the Document>>Convert Format / ICC Profile dialog box to select the Rendering Intent that you decided on when soft proofing, and select sRGB ICC profile ( and RGB/8 bit which is what my printer requests)? Thanks!
I'm not sure that I'm fully following what you're doing but if you select sRGB rather than the printer profile you are just soft proofing against sRGB. The rendering intent then shows how the out of gamut colours (those falling outside sRGB) are rendered using the different options. The icc profile you set in the soft proof for your printer and paper combination tells the software what colours can and can't be handled. The rendering intent then shows you how the ones that fall outside of this could be changed.
Sorry for the confusion, my wife and I both use this iMac, and I inadvertantly signed on under her user name (Bobbie) and left a comment. Your tutorial is excellent as I stated below. One question: what does the "merge" button in the soft proof window actually do?
No problem' it boosts my stats. The merge button merges the Adjustment Layer with the Pixel Layer. Basically, it applies the adjustment to the image and you lose the layer.
I am new to Affinity (2 months) I’m using an i-Mac desktop computer. Printing with an Epson P6000 I process my RAW files with Capture One and output as PSD files. I used to set colour space to ProPhoto RGB when I was using Windodqs but read that the best colour space on a Mac was ROMM which I now use in the output. After I do my retouch, soft proof and need to output file for printing what file type should I be outputting in PSD, TIFF, etc. Want to retain maximum colour gamut. When I output what colourt profile should I be using: the paper profile or the ROMM profile that I processed it in? I need answers to these questions ASAP
It doesn't matter providing you've done the soft proofing and made any necessary adjustments. Either Affinity will handle the conversion between colour spaces or the printer will. Either way it's going to produce the same result. What Soft Proofing allows you to do is see that in advance and apply any corrections.
Excellent video! One question I’ve always had regarding Affinity Photo 1 and 2 for specifically for Mac, is WHY is there no option to send the file to the printer USING the rendering intents chosen in the soft proof? Why hasn’t Serif managed to include rendering intents in the Mac version of it’s print interface? I understand rendering intents ARE available in the Windows version of AFP. WHY not Mac? It’s so frustrating. Rendering intents are absolutely critical to printing. Do you have a workaround for this unfortunate issue? It is one of the TOP issues for me and my students. It’s one of the main reasons we still have to keep Adobe PS around for printing. Any workarounds on the Mac software for printing that you use would be SUPER appreciated. Great video thanks so much!
I'm afraid that I don't know why either and I don't have a workaround. I would also like to see an option to be able to switch the colour management between the printer or the software.
@@RobinWhalley Actually the existence of colour Management options in the Print Dialogue has nothing to do with Affinity Photo itself. It is the printer driver used that controls this. The in-built Mac OS driver (AirPrint) does not have the colour management option, but the printer's own driver does (at least my Epson printer driver does).
I have always wondered how my Affinity Photos would look when printed and I thought this tutorial on soft printing was really helpful in getting what I see on screen to look like it would when printed. The thing I am missing in actually using what I have learned from this video is two fold: 1. How do I get the Proof Profile for the paper I am using? 2. How does my home photo printer effect what the photo will look like when printed compared to what I see on screen?
You can get the ICC profiles for your paper and printer combination from the paper manufacturer website. If they don't supply them switch to using a paper that does. I recommend someone like Fotospeed as they provide a lot of free profiles for their papers. If your printer isn't listed, they will make you a free bespoke profile for your printer using their paper. As for your home printer, it works just the same way as described providing your are using the correct ICC profile. The only problem you may have is if your printer isn't a photo printer. Photo quality printers tend to have more inks than the usual 4 colour printers and so produce better quality.
Perhaps a late burner. But I bought Affinity photo just some weeks ago. Normally I print in Capture one 20. I would like to know if affinity photo can produce better prints then Capture one, due to the easier softproofing. I also see better possibillities for working and creating borders in Affinity. Perhaps its possible to make a more specific video about this. Many thanks upfront.
Sorry, I've no idea if Affinity creates better prints than Capture One and I suspect there isn't much between them. Also better is such a subjective thing. I personally use Lightroom for most of my printing. Because I've used it so much I have a feel for it. Thanks for the suggestion about creating boarders in Affinity. I do have it on my to do list.
Thank you for an excellent tutorial. I hope you don't mind me asking you a question: if there are no printer-specific profiles installed, what are we better off using? I am asking because I don't own a professional oriented printer, it is one that has excellent reviews as far as printing photos go but still, after all, it is still an all-in-one. I used the generic CMYK profile for soft proofing, and I had somewhat decent results, considering the paper was pretty much garbage, very, very old, I used it just cause I had nothing else to muck about with until I'd got decent paper. So, what would be your advice? On the manufacturer's site there are neither printer nor paper icc profiles available for download, so I am a bit stuck with the preinstalled ones in Affinity, and I really don't know which ones would be better suited for my case. Many thanks, thank you for your time and keep up the excellent work.
To do a proper soft proof you really need the correct profile for the paper and printer. I would suggest trying to find a good value paper from a manufacturer that supports your printer with a free profile. A good alternative is to find a paper supplier who offers a free profiling service like Permajet or Fotospeed. More companies are doing this and the results when I've used these services are excellent.
@@RobinWhalley Cheers Robin, thank you for that. First thing I'll do is contact Canon and see if they would send me a paper profile considering both the printer and the paper are theirs. Should this not work out then I will go the route you suggested.
Thank you, Robin, for the informative video. I only discovered the softproof-adjustment this afternoon when I tried to optimize an Affinity Publisher-document for printing. By chance, RUclips just suggested me your video (I think they know me better than I know myself ;) ), and that takes my knowledge to a new level. And at the same time it shows me how much I still have to learn. By the way, would you recommend converting RGB photos to CMYK first? Greets, Claudia
Thank you. And to answer your question I wouldn't do anything in CMYK unless you're usig a CMYK press and they require it in CMYK. Trying to adjust in CMYK is much harder than using RGB and then converting when you need to. It's very much like a dark art.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks for answering! The printing company once told me to convert to CMYK, last time, they said RGB is fine. Not very helpful. I will call them again and ask, but it's good to know your opinion before. Tks.
@@SandcityDe Do check with them but, if you're using a printing company doing CMYK be sure you get a proof copy from them before going ahead. It's usually an additional cost but can save a lot of money if the colours are wrong.
Great Video Robin but I have a question: I use a print shop that does my printing for me and they just use a standard print paper that doesn't seem to have an actual brand name or any other information of the type of paper they use. He just tells me it a high quality gloss photo paper. When I send print files to him, what soft proof setting should I set it to. My prints do come back just a hair darker than I would like so should I just brighten the image 10% or so to make up for the loss of light or is there a "general setting I can use for "general photo papers" that "he" seems to think handle most photo printing needs? Thanks again for all of your very helpful videos!
I'm glad you like the video but to answer your question, I have good and bad news. The bad news is that you aren't going to achieve an accurate print without a profile for the ink and paper. I also can't give you any general settings that will work in this situation. The good news is that gloss paper tends to be much closer to what you see on screen than matte paper and so requires less adjustment in soft proofing. It's probably why you only see the prints looking slightly darker than your screen. You probably have three possible solutions 1) move to a printer who can provide profiles for you to use. 2) You could try lightening your prints slightly but you would need to experiment by how much using a print test chart (you should be able to find one on the internet for free). I'm also assuming you have a correctly calibrated display before doing this or you might find your screen is the problem and not the printer. 3) Pay to have a custom profile made. This would require you having a test print made which you would send off to have analysed. You may find your printer would agree to printing the test chart for free if you give him a copy of the custom profile. That does assume the printers he uses are all the same make/model. If they aren't, this isn't worth doing.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks Robin...great tips here and I will try a few of them but trial and error maybe the only thing I've got. I love my print shop but they could be a little better in the technical aspect of things...Thanks again and I enjoy your channel!!
Ah, this is what I was looking for, thanks Robin, this tutorial is very useful. Btw, one question, if I use soft proof adjustment to check the gamut. Do I also have to convert the document to cmyk too for printing? Or it's not necessary, because the color and gamut have been configured and matched.
An issue I don't understand is that if I soft proof an RGB image, creating adjustment layers to bring colours back into the gamut for a particular CMYK profile, I can produce something that looks acceptable BUT if I then *convert* the image to the same CMYK profile the adjusted areas look completely different to the soft proof... Surely they should not be altered on conversion as they are now within the CMYK gamut. If I must submit files in CMYK format to be printed should I skip soft proofing and simply convert and adjust?
Whilst I never use CMYK, I would Soft Proof after converting to CMYK. That way you should get what you see. I just tried it on a couple of images picking a standard press print setting and it seems to work fine.
robin, thanks for the video. i came to a screeching halt rather quickly because i don't have paper profiles. i assume said profiles are downloaded from manufacturer website. i have been unable to find a method for importing. can you help please?
Yes, you need to download the profiles from the paper manufacturers site. These usually come with a set of instructions describing how to install them. With Windows its easy, you just need to double click the profile file or right click and choose install. On a Mac you need to copy the profile to a location I can never remember. I don't know which paper you're using, but here's a link to the Fotospeed generic profiles page as an example. www.fotospeed.com/profiles.asp?SeriesID=9&TextID=1 Try downloading one of their profiles and looking at the instructions in the zip file.
I'm not sure I understood the very last part. Should you export the file with or without the ajustements you made? If it without, how would it work at the printer ? I think I got it now i asked but i'd like to read an answer :). thanks for the video
This is the first video I found which really explained the soft-proofing and the gamut check 👍, but one thing is still not clear for me. At 9:36 I read that you should turn off your soft proofing layers before printing, but at 9:59 I heard you say that you turn then back on when you sent it to the printer. The latter seems logical to me, as that is what you like. Only now I have the question about what is the correct way. Did I misunderstand what you meant?
@@RobinWhalley i Thanks Robin. You’ll probably be right, but then I don’t understand it. With soft-proofing you make the corrections needed to match your print with what you see on the screen as close as possible. For me it sounds logical that you print with the soft proofing layers as these hold the needed corrections whereas without the layers you lost these and imo the print would come out wrong. What am I missing?
@@Martingj56 All the soft Proof layer is doing is making the image look like it will when printed. Given we have the simulate ink and paper option turned on, the image won't look as good as on screen (without softtproof). We therefore need to adjust it to make it look as we want it to appear when printed. Then turn off the softproof layer because when you send it to the printer, the printer is going to make it look like the soft proof layer did. Think of it as swapping the soft proof layer with the printer. Does that help at all?
very nicely made, i am a bit confused because at the end you say to turn the soft proof layer off and then back on when you come to print, i thought i had seen an affinity instruction video about a year ago on youtube that said to be sure to turn the soft proofing off ?
Thanks. I think what I was trying to say in the video is that if you make any adjustments to the image to compensate for the effect of printing then you need to turn those on. But you only turn them on for printing. Regarding the soft proofing layer, then turn that off for printing and also whilst doing your general editing. I hope that makes sense.
i do not have a printer, intending to send files out. it has been difficult to find paper profiles. where can one find them? another issue is the printer itself. if sending out for printing, consumers have no way of knowing which printer is being used. as i understand it, correct color requires a printer/paper profile used in tandem. have i missed something?
You don't need to know which printer the lab is using. You just need them to supply you with the correct profile. Many of the online labs publish these in their FAQ section. Here's an example from Peak Imaging in the UK www.peak-imaging.com/about/monitor.calibration If they don't publush a profile, try emailling and asking the question.
I think I'm missing something with this process. Once you've added the soft proof and made adjustments, do you then flatten the layers and export as a jpeg? I'm guessing a printer wouldn't be able to deal with those separate layers. Yeah I'm a noob when it comes to printing 😁
I think the problem is that you were expecting to see a video about printing whilst this video is very specific and covers only soft proofing. What to do next depends on how you will print your images. If you are going to print them yourself from Affinity Photo you would turn off the soft proofing layer first. You can then use the print option from the File menu. If you are going to upload a JPEG to a print service, turn off the soft proofing layer and then export the image to a JPEG. I hope this helps.
Hi, very informative video, but I don't really get the point of the rendering intent. Since it only affects the soft proofing layer, which is turned of before printing, what difference does it make? I mean wouldn't the actual output device need to know what method was used to transform the colors in the same way? Also, you described that for example relative colormetric is mapping to the closest colors that are in gamut. Why then are there still any colors shown as out of gamut in the gamut check?
The rendering intent you decide to use in soft proofing is the one you should you should then use when printing. If you pick a different one the adjustment you made wont be optimal. All rendering intents remap OOG colours but in different ways. The soft proof is showing which ones will be remapped whilst showing you how that will look. Please read the soft proofing article on my website for more information (lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/capture-one-soft-proofing/).
Robin Whalley I see, that makes sense. Thank you. The question came up for me, because I don’t actually print it myself. I was trying to prepare a picture for having it printed using the ICC profile they provided. It’s not really possible to tell them which rendering intent I was using to base my adjustments on.
@@srwx Most labs I've used tend to use Perceptual rendering by default. It may be checking with them. If you can find out what they use then just use that when Soft Proofing.
I am puzzled as to what to do next if I wish to send this to an external print house. Do I turn off the soft proof layer and then go to Document and convert to the correct ICC profile and save?
There is a small additional step involved if you're going to send the image to a third party for print. Once you've done the soft proofing you should have a soft proof layer and probably a couple more adjustment layers that are just for print. The "print only" adjustments are to make the soft proof look correct and handle any out of gamut colours. What you need to do is turn off the soft proof layer but leave the other "print only" adjustments on. Export this image to a file and then send that to the printer. Best sure when you are soft proofing to use the ICC profile supplied by the printer and not a generic one. I would also suggest doing a simple test print first to be sure you have the process right.
When I am soft proofing I do use the ICC profile given but then when I save do I have to apply the ICC profile following the command under "Document" 'Convert ICC profile'?@@RobinWhalley
If you've gone through the soft proofing you don't need to convert to the ICC profile. The ICC profile is only required for the soft proofing. You should though use a suitable colour space like Adobe RGB. In the soft proofing process, your adjustments have mapped your editing colour space to the target ICC profile that will be used for printing. That's why you have Out of Gamut colours/tones that you correct. Just export the image with the same colour space you have been doing your editing in.
According to my experience Affinity Photo softproof shows a much wider color range as out of gamut than Photoshop or Lightroom do with the same picture and proofing profile. Do you have any experience in comparison to softproof in Photoshop? Either Photoshop or Affinity seem to show a wrong out of gamut range.
Whilst I haven't made any comparisons, I did notice when making the video that Affinity does report more of the image as being Out of Gamut compared to the likes of Lightroom. I did a brief check and it seemed that it was due mainly to very dark areas showing as Out of Gamut because a true black can't be reproduced by the printer and paper. I don't believe the likes of Lightroom and Photoshop report black pixels in this way but I may be wrong. As I say, I didn;t investigate any further.
@@johnstolz18 Did you adjust the image and then turn off the Soft Proofing adjustment layer? If you were using a gloss paper then it might also account for there not being much difference. Gloss paper typically doesn't require as much adjustment as a Matte paper.
@@RobinWhalley Yes I turned off the soft-proof layer. The print doesn't remotely match the soft-proofed image on the screen. Colours and tonality are entirely different.
My images look great in Affinity Photo, but as soon as I put them into either Instagram or Vero, they are darker. Any ideas what could be causing this?
My best guess is that you are exporting them in a colour space that these apps don't like. Check in the Advanced settings of the export dialog that the new image used sRGB. That may solve the problem.
@@RobinWhalley I think I’ve been doing it in adobe rgb. I’ve now tried converting to srgb first and it seems better, if not perfect. Thanks for your help.
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
Outstanding video, narrated with clarity and precision - super informative on a topic that is not broadly covered in AP. Thank you so much for this - it has been incredibly helpful.
I'm very glad to hear it was helpful to you. As you say, it's not often covered.
Loved this, it covers pretty much any questions I had - can't wait to put this to use. I think you've saved me from quite some failed prints, so thank you! :D
Glad it was helpful. Thank you.
Excellent, thank you Robin. The best explaination regarding printing with ICC profiles I have even seen.
Thank you. That’s very good to hear.
I was searching for something else only slightly related, and ended up with this tutorial. This is one of the most informative description of soft proofing and how to deal with colour gamut and the dynamic range of paper vs backlit sources (monitors!) I've seen so far, thanks!
Thank you very much. I'm pleased that you found and liked it.
Just wanted to say thanks for this video.
I've been using this technique for years to soft proof my photos for printing as C1's soft proof is not the best.
Thanks again
Thank you. That's most appreciated.
At last: the terrors of the frighteningly mysterious 'soft proofing' explained - I wasn't even sure what it was, though I'll have watch it umpteen more times to make it sink in. Thank you.
Soft proofing is a dreadful subject because a lot of people who try to explain it don't understand it themselves. It took me quite a few years to piece together the basics so I could build on them.
That's really helpful. Thank you very much.
You're welcome!
That was once a detailed manual and very very descriptive. Step by step you can see what you can do to avoid disappointments while printing. Thank you very much!
Thank you. I'm pleased it hit the mark.
A masterclass in the "black Art" of printing and its technology. Thanks Robin.
Much appreciated. Printing's tricky and finding good information even more difficult. It took me a while to work out what was happening.
The best explanation of soft-proofing and how to use it in Affinity Photo. Much thanks for this needed video.
Thank you. That's great feedback.
Brilliant Robin. You explained this for me in an understandable way........... Thanks
Thank you. That's great to hear.
As ever with Robin this is a no nonsense video telling you all the facts in a concise way. Brilliant. A superb tutorial.
Thank you
Great following these tips Robin, step by step pros and cons .. superb .
@@Mikey-cc3rf Thank you. That's what I'm aiming to provide.
Really good video. Well done. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you
Nice video and very informative
Thanks!
You're welcome. Thank you.
Legend! Fantastically described video for a beginner in soft proofing like me👍
Great to hear. I'm glad that it helped you.
Excellent fill all the gaps I had. Thankyoui
Glad it helped. Thank you.
So nicely explained. Thank you is not enough!!
You're very welcome!
Best explanation I've seen of the soft proofing process. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful! Thank you.
Outstanding tutorial on soft proofing with Affinity. Hi have been wrestling with soft proofing for quite a while now and you have a way of explaining it perfectly, thank you, Robin
Glad it was helpful. Thank you.
Great succinct advice that better covers 'the why' as well as 'the how' to printing adjustments. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful! Thank you
Thank you, a very informative video.
Glad it was helpful! Thank you.
Amazing tutorial! Thank you, sir.
You're very welcome. Thank you
Printing with ICC profiles has always been confusing. Your video cleared it up for me. Thank you.
Thanks. Please to have helped.
Great video. I was searching for an answer to one specific question, and you did answer it -- in the last 30 seconds! (Whether to print with the soft proof layer on or off.) Along the way I learned more about soft proofing, and especially about using the gamma check. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful and answered your question.
Thanks Robin, an excellent clear and concise video - just what I needed
Great to hear. Thank you.
Thank you Robin, well explained, more than you realise.
Glad it was helpful for you. Thank you.
Excellent vid. I would of loved to see you print the image, which by the way was a nice image. Well explained. One of the best I have seen.
Thank you.
Excellent presentation, comprehensive. I've been trying to figure out how AP soft proof actually works for more than a year. Now I have to go back and correct a lot of my image files ...
Thank you.
I cannot thank you enough for this video and the clarity of your explanations
You're very welcome. I'm pleased that you found it helpful.
Spot on! Thank you for this concise video. This clears things up and takes care to not introduce more misunderstandings, while many other tutorials on color management and proofing do proliferate common misconceptions. Well done, keep up the good work!
Thank you. That's great to hear.
I would like to add to the existing positive comments. Your instructive session serves as an excellent example of a "how to" video. You tell the learner what you are going to do and you waste little time in covering the steps involved as you make adjustments to the image. Your pacing is excellent and likely to keep the viewer engaged throughout; content is good; both video / audio quality are good; and dare I say, this is a well-scripted professional presentation. As one who produced many training and informational videos, I appreciate the skills your work displays.
Thank you very much. But if you do spot areas for improvement please let me know. I'm always trying to think of ways to make the videos more engaging. All suggestions welcomed.
Nicely done, Robin! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks. I'm pleased you liked it.
Very helpful and concise, thanks Robin.
Thank you
Another great video, very informative and well done, this is great!!
Thank you. That's much appreciated.
Excellent presentation and so, so helpful. Thank you!!
You're very welcome!
Only just discovered this resource. Really good video, on something I have been struggling with, many thanks.
Thanks and I hope it's helped you.
@@RobinWhalley Hi Robin, yes it has very much. I knew of soft proofing, but not how to successfully remove the out of gamut range. I need to finish a photo for a competition and managed with your help to sort it out. Many thanks.
Thanks for letting me know. I love it when I can help someone.
really fantastic video - well done, right to the point - thanks very much for this!!
Glad it was helpful! Thank you
Excellent, clear explanation. Thank you!
Thank you very much. I'm please that you liked it.
Just what I needed, thank you so much! All perfectly explained.
Glad it helped! Thank you.
Another great video! I learned a lot from your educational shows and they help me a lot in understanding Affinity photo. Thanks! I also edit photos with this program and print them myself. I often got bad prints until I started editing photos and printing them as follows:
- When I open photo.jpg in Affinity photo, for example it is in RGB / 8 format and in sRGB profile IEC61966-2.1
- After editing in the program, I would like to print the image with the EPSON printer ET8550 (L8180), for example, on Epson Premium semigloss photo paper. Therefore in Affinity photo, photo.jpg with profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1 I change by clicking on Document / Convert Format / ICCProfile… and under Profile I click ET8550 L8180 series Premium Semigloss and then on the Convert button. With this conversion, I changed the ICC profile on the document (photo) to one that is compatible with the paper or printer. In this case, it is not necessary to edit and correct the image with a soft proof layer, as the image is color-matched with paper and printer and no gray areas appear in the photo in Gamut check when confirmed in the checkbox. Since I have a spectracolorimeter, I can also make an accurate ICC for my printer or different types of paper and ink, so that everything is coordinated. I believe that a better footprint than the correct ICC for paper, printer and ink can provide and the image.jpg converted to ICC paper profile cannot be achieved anyway, as all other colors outside the ICC profile of paper and printer are incorrect colors at printing.
- Now under Print in Propertis I set everything I need, the size and type of paper and under Advance, Without color adjustment. Then at the bottom of the Print window I set Color management and Color handling to Performed by app and Printer profile on ET8550 L8180 Series Premium Semigloss, as seen in Document profile. You can adjust the rendering intent to your liking and it has little effect on the image quality, sometimes the differences are almost imperceptible.
Now that I have described my way of preparing for printing and printing I ask you and ask you for an answer. Namely, nowhere on the web have I noticed that the image was converted to the ICC profile of the paper before printing, although this gives excellent prints. Am I doing something completely wrong and is this in some way reducing the color gamut of the print?
Thanks for the reply and I wish you many more successful videos!
Hi Marko, thanks for sharing your approach in such detail. No you aren't doing anything wrong but there is a limitation you are building in that could cause issues for you if you change your workflow. Here's what I think is happening in your workflow and why it works:
➡ The images you are working with are in the sRGB colour space which is a small colours space and can represent a narrower range of colours than the likes of Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB.
➡ It's highly likely that the paper, printer and ink combination you are using can also reproduce the sRGB colour space so there are no out of gamut colours and no changes needed to the image to print it.
I did publish this article which might help to explain this further lenscraft.co.uk/photography-tutorials/which-icc-profile-should-i-use/.
The limitation you have created is that you're restricting your colours to those of the smaller colour space. There are plenty of times in photography where this can damage subtle transitions between colours. You might argue that you are starting with the sRGB colour space and so not losing anything. But if you shot your original image in RAW format, the "damage" is done to the colours when apply the sRGB colour space (probably during RAW processing). I hope this helps.
@@RobinWhalley
Hi Robin,
thank you for taking the time to study my writing. I read your answer with interest and also your published article in the link. I have now changed the color space from sRGB to Adobe RGB on both of my cameras and will be shooting in this color range in the future. Later I will develop and print photos according to your suggestions, although even with "my" workflow I get quite satisfactory prints for me, also for the exhibition on the home wall, in A4 or A3 size, heh, heh. I hope that I will be able to get even better results with a large color space, RAW editing and softproof fixes.
Best regards!
Very well presented. Grateful as always.
Thank you very much.
Wow, that was an area of Affinity I had no idea existed. Thanks
Yes, there's a lot more to Affinity Photo than initially meets the eye.
Thank your your excellent explanation.
No problem
Very helpful, many thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Seriously considering switching to Affinity after years of LR/PS and printing is an area for investigation. This video is probably one of the best I have ever seen on the task of soft proofing and shows that Affinity Photo makes this very straightforward. Another tick in the box of things to check before saying goodbye to Adobe. Now, if only Affinity did a DAM - Heh Hoh!
Serif were working on a LR replacement a year or two back but then there was no further mention. But if you need a good free asset manager to go with Affinity why not use Adobe Bridge. It probably does everything you want it to and you can integrate with Affinity Photo. I think I may need to publish something about this.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks for the reply Robin. I have looked at ACDSee but that seems unstable, crashed twice already, and is endlessly consuming 50% of CPU, indexing I think, so I'm giving up on that. Bridge, as you say, does most of what I need. Two principal downsides. 1) I'll have to manually recreate all my LR collections and smart collections. Laborious but doable thanks to Bridge seeing all of the existing keywords. 2) Bridge does not display thumbnails for .afphoto which is no great surprise. So live with that or use .tiff from Affinity with the save layers option selected. That is a bit messy but doable as you have to export initially. Many upsides to Bridge though e.g. the import images structure is there and it is easy to set Affinity Photo as the default editor for raw to name but two. Plus of course it's free! It would be great if Serif produced a DAM but I will not hold my breath on that. In the meantime does anyone know if Bridge can be configured display the afphoto thumbnail?? I doubt it but there are some clever people out there.
Excellent explanation and a huge help, than you! I am also curious to learn about how to find the correct profile for my particular paper and printer. Oddly, my printer is listed in the soft proof screen rather than the paper.
The paper profile you select must be the one for your print and paper combination. If you change papers or printer you will need a new profile. Assuming your not having bespoke profiles created for you, it's best to download the ones from the paper manufacturers website. I personally like to use Fotospeed or Permajet papers. Both of these companies offer a free bespoke profiling service which is excellent and best of all free.
Amazingly helpful!!
Thank you!
You're welcome! Thank you
Thank robin I've watched this twice now, its the best explanation of theSoft Proof feature in Affinity photo! Printing images on Matte paper is really hard eh? :-)
Thank you. I tried hard to make it easy to understand so I'm really pleased that you liked it. As for Matte paper I love and hate it in equal measure.
Excellent explanation and instructional video on how to get image within gamut using soft proofing. I would like to know what the blend modes do in soft proofing as I’ve used the “darken” mode to bring image back within gamut but it doesn’t seem to do anything when I save it as a tiff and reopen it again. I know it should be turned off for printing.
I'm sorry but looking at Blend Modes and the way to use them is a huge topic and not something I can cover in a comment or video.
Good morning, Robin, and thanks for the prompt reply. I understand the difference between color and paper type profiles. The "Quallity and Media" panel appears in the print Dialogue box ( I'm on a Mac). So, would the procedure be to select the proper icc under the color sync panel and under print drive just select paper type i.e. glossy or luster,etc.?
Yes, that's correct. ColorSync section is for the ICC profile and they should all show (although you may need to select the more profiles option at the bottom of the list). I don't have a Quality and Media option on mine but I'm certain that's for the paper type.
This is beautifully explained, especially as I'm interested in this software. I am confused slightly though, as I always thought absolute intent was to be avoided when printing photographs. Even though absolute doesn't shift the colours of the image (unlike relative) this is not a good thing, as it doesn't take into account the white of the paper its being printed to, and so you get the wrong whites in your image.
Thanks, I'm pleased you liked it. And yes, you are correct about the Absolute rendering not shifting the points. BUT, from my print testing, the prints are the same as the screen. I did experiment with changing profiles and the Soft Proof layer appeared to be simulating the paper colour very closely. If I'm printing from Lightroom or Photoshop I usually use Relative or Perceptual but in Affinity, they don't seem to work as well. Perhaps it was my image (chosen because it was tricky to print) but the best print was using the Absolute rendering. It's a shame there isn't more information available from Affinity about this as I would love to understand it a little more.
@@RobinWhalley Totally fair enough Robin, and ultimately if the print is working then it's working! Maybe they work their Absolute intent a little differently, or maybe in this case it just didn't have any discernible negative effect anyway. Again thanks for the video, very informative, just like all your others. Best.
Thank you
Great video and very helpful! I have to guess you are using custom color profiles. I'm using Affinity Photo, a Mac and a Canon pro-10 printer and do not find any profiles for my printer/paper when adding the soft proof layer or anywhere else except for the printer driver. Since I want Affinity to handle the colors I would like to soft proof for my printer paper combination but do not know how to find the profiles. Canon only seems to have them available to download for non-canon papers used with the pro-10. Any help would be wonderful!
I print using the profile that matches my paper and print combination. I also tend to use Fotospeed papers and they will produce a custom profile for your printer with their paper. It's free and does make a difference over some of the generic paper profiles. If you are struggling with profiles I would recommend trying some of their paper. Great quality and a free profile.
@@RobinWhalley Thank You very much!
Thanks, again!
Thank you for very good explanation. I have a question: in the soft proof dialogue, all my installed icc's are present, but in the Print Panel under "quality and Media" only a few are present. I know about "color Management" panel with all the icc's, and I select the proper one. However, they are not preset in the "quality and Media" panal
Hi James, can I check that when you talk about the "Quality and Media" panel, you are referring to your print driver and not Affinity. Assuming you are, the reason you don't see the ICC presets is that the driver will only display paper profiles. The paper profiles are different to colour profiles and configure the printer for the type of paper you are using. For example, does it have a gloss or matte surface, how thick is it etc. The thing that confuses a lot of people is that printer manufacturers usually name these paper profiles to be very similar to their ICC profiles. If this doesn't answer your question, can you let me know a little more about how you get to the "Quality and Media" panel on your system?
great video!
Thank you
you are a genius!!
Wow! Thank you
Thank you!
You’re welcome.
The Best! Thank you.
Two questions please:
1. If i send the image to an on line Lab, is good to use Absolute Colourmetric as Rendering intent or is needeed Percptual?
2. Is possible to use this Proofing process in AP to bypass the proofing process in Capture One that is strange?
Thanks again.
Gianluigi
Thanks. I'm pleased it helped. To answer your questions:
1. I would check with the print lab you are going to use. If they can't say, I suspect they will be using Perceptual rendering (but that's a guess).
2. You only need to Soft Proof once. If you find Affinity best then use that.
Brilliant!...as usual :)
Thank you
I would think the color model is more determinitive than the paper given the same parameters. That's why given the paper desired, working in offset at 175-200 dpi halftoning, we always rendered the image CMYK to a conversion curve fingerprinted to our presses and hard proofed that to the client for approval. If you end up with a 3% printer in the highlights of a color, is the printer or press actually able to hold that fine tone. Likewise, for a 90-95% printing color in the shadows as opposed to a 100% printer that posterizes. Coupled with the restricted reproduction spectrum of CMYK inks, it was always safer to proof from a CMYK converted image. Soft proofs were for content and positioning only, NOT color fidelity.
Hi Robin,
Your video does an excellent job on explaining the soft proofing process. I have had good success using it on several photos.
But, whenever the photo has reds, oranges, or blues I just cannot seem to get even close to the original. I have focused on using Curves and HSL to try to do this.
Could you perhaps explain what I should be doing for reds, oranges and blues.
the Best,
Rich Pack
It's really going to depend on the colour space for the paper you are using. Some papers, especially matte paper struggle to deal with these colours. You can try shifting the hue or reducing the saturation a little but it can make a mess. It sounds to me like you might want to consider a different paper (and profile).
@@RobinWhalley Hi Robin,
I have 8 images that I have been trying to soft proof using your video on Soft Proofing.
I am new to Soft Proofing, so perhaps I am missing something critical.
I have spent a lot of time with that video; I can get 3 images soft proofed to my satisfaction, but the others involve reds, blues, yellows, and oranges, and no matter what I try they just get worse.
My default color space is sRGB IEC61966-2.1; I have also tried AdobeRGB (1968) and ROMM RGB. Both got worse. I would have tried ProPhoto RGB, but I can’t find it in the latest version of Affinity Photo.
I am using the publisher WhiteWall. The paper is Fuji Crystal Professional Archive Maxima. They have provided the icc profile for this. I am looking for high quality on colors and details. This paper, according to WhiteWall has “Enormous color gamut.” This is a glossy paper.
With an enormous color gamut, I am not clear on why I can’t see even some incremental improvement.
My sense is that the Curves Adjustment is where I could best impact this. With that in mind I have tried a variety of things, but they always get worse. And that is the problem, I can’t even seem to get any form of incremental improvement.
Any thoughts or ideas would be deeply appreciated.
the Best,
Rich Pack
Robin, thanks for a very informative video. I'm brand new to Affinity and I am unclear about the soft proof layer before printing. Should the layer be deleted prior to printing or is it sufficient simply to turn off its visibility? Thank you.
Yes, just hide the layer when you are ready to print.
I've read a few comments you replied to that almost answered my question: Shouldn't you use the Document>>Convert Format / ICC Profile dialog box to select the Rendering Intent that you decided on when soft proofing, and select sRGB ICC profile ( and RGB/8 bit which is what my printer requests)? Thanks!
I'm not sure that I'm fully following what you're doing but if you select sRGB rather than the printer profile you are just soft proofing against sRGB. The rendering intent then shows how the out of gamut colours (those falling outside sRGB) are rendered using the different options. The icc profile you set in the soft proof for your printer and paper combination tells the software what colours can and can't be handled. The rendering intent then shows you how the ones that fall outside of this could be changed.
Sorry for the confusion, my wife and I both use this iMac, and I inadvertantly signed on under her user name (Bobbie) and left a comment. Your tutorial is excellent as I stated below. One question: what does the "merge" button in the soft proof window actually do?
No problem' it boosts my stats. The merge button merges the Adjustment Layer with the Pixel Layer. Basically, it applies the adjustment to the image and you lose the layer.
I am new to Affinity (2 months)
I’m using an i-Mac desktop computer. Printing with an Epson P6000
I process my RAW files with Capture One and output as PSD files. I used to set colour space to ProPhoto RGB when I was using Windodqs but read that the best colour space on a Mac was ROMM which I now use in the output.
After I do my retouch, soft proof and need to output file for printing what file type should I be outputting in PSD, TIFF, etc. Want to retain maximum colour gamut.
When I output what colourt profile should I be using: the paper profile or the ROMM profile that I processed it in?
I need answers to these questions ASAP
It doesn't matter providing you've done the soft proofing and made any necessary adjustments. Either Affinity will handle the conversion between colour spaces or the printer will. Either way it's going to produce the same result. What Soft Proofing allows you to do is see that in advance and apply any corrections.
Excellent video! One question I’ve always had regarding Affinity Photo 1 and 2 for specifically for Mac, is WHY is there no option to send the file to the printer USING the rendering intents chosen in the soft proof? Why hasn’t Serif managed to include rendering intents in the Mac version of it’s print interface? I understand rendering intents ARE available in the Windows version of AFP. WHY not Mac? It’s so frustrating. Rendering intents are absolutely critical to printing. Do you have a workaround for this unfortunate issue? It is one of the TOP issues for me and my students. It’s one of the main reasons we still have to keep Adobe PS around for printing. Any workarounds on the Mac software for printing that you use would be SUPER appreciated. Great video thanks so much!
I'm afraid that I don't know why either and I don't have a workaround. I would also like to see an option to be able to switch the colour management between the printer or the software.
@@RobinWhalley Actually the existence of colour Management options in the Print Dialogue has nothing to do with Affinity Photo itself. It is the printer driver used that controls this. The in-built Mac OS driver (AirPrint) does not have the colour management option, but the printer's own driver does (at least my Epson printer driver does).
I have always wondered how my Affinity Photos would look when printed and I thought this tutorial on soft printing was really helpful in getting what I see on screen to look like it would when printed. The thing I am missing in actually using what I have learned from this video is two fold: 1. How do I get the Proof Profile for the paper I am using? 2. How does my home photo printer effect what the photo will look like when printed compared to what I see on screen?
You can get the ICC profiles for your paper and printer combination from the paper manufacturer website. If they don't supply them switch to using a paper that does. I recommend someone like Fotospeed as they provide a lot of free profiles for their papers. If your printer isn't listed, they will make you a free bespoke profile for your printer using their paper.
As for your home printer, it works just the same way as described providing your are using the correct ICC profile. The only problem you may have is if your printer isn't a photo printer. Photo quality printers tend to have more inks than the usual 4 colour printers and so produce better quality.
Thanks!
You're welcome.
Perhaps a late burner. But I bought Affinity photo just some weeks ago. Normally I print in Capture one 20. I would like to know if affinity photo can produce better prints then Capture one, due to the easier softproofing. I also see better possibillities for working and creating borders in Affinity. Perhaps its possible to make a more specific video about this. Many thanks upfront.
Sorry, I've no idea if Affinity creates better prints than Capture One and I suspect there isn't much between them. Also better is such a subjective thing. I personally use Lightroom for most of my printing. Because I've used it so much I have a feel for it.
Thanks for the suggestion about creating boarders in Affinity. I do have it on my to do list.
Thank you for an excellent tutorial. I hope you don't mind me asking you a question: if there are no printer-specific profiles installed, what are we better off using? I am asking because I don't own a professional oriented printer, it is one that has excellent reviews as far as printing photos go but still, after all, it is still an all-in-one.
I used the generic CMYK profile for soft proofing, and I had somewhat decent results, considering the paper was pretty much garbage, very, very old, I used it just cause I had nothing else to muck about with until I'd got decent paper.
So, what would be your advice? On the manufacturer's site there are neither printer nor paper icc profiles available for download, so I am a bit stuck with the preinstalled ones in Affinity, and I really don't know which ones would be better suited for my case.
Many thanks, thank you for your time and keep up the excellent work.
To do a proper soft proof you really need the correct profile for the paper and printer. I would suggest trying to find a good value paper from a manufacturer that supports your printer with a free profile. A good alternative is to find a paper supplier who offers a free profiling service like Permajet or Fotospeed. More companies are doing this and the results when I've used these services are excellent.
@@RobinWhalley Cheers Robin, thank you for that. First thing I'll do is contact Canon and see if they would send me a paper profile considering both the printer and the paper are theirs. Should this not work out then I will go the route you suggested.
Thank you, Robin, for the informative video. I only discovered the softproof-adjustment this afternoon when I tried to optimize an Affinity Publisher-document for printing. By chance, RUclips just suggested me your video (I think they know me better than I know myself ;) ), and that takes my knowledge to a new level. And at the same time it shows me how much I still have to learn.
By the way, would you recommend converting RGB photos to CMYK first?
Greets, Claudia
Thank you. And to answer your question I wouldn't do anything in CMYK unless you're usig a CMYK press and they require it in CMYK. Trying to adjust in CMYK is much harder than using RGB and then converting when you need to. It's very much like a dark art.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks for answering! The printing company once told me to convert to CMYK, last time, they said RGB is fine. Not very helpful. I will call them again and ask, but it's good to know your opinion before. Tks.
@@SandcityDe Do check with them but, if you're using a printing company doing CMYK be sure you get a proof copy from them before going ahead. It's usually an additional cost but can save a lot of money if the colours are wrong.
@@RobinWhalley I'm sure you're right. Thank you very much for your advice.
Great Video Robin but I have a question: I use a print shop that does my printing for me and they just use a standard print paper that doesn't seem to have an actual brand name or any other information of the type of paper they use. He just tells me it a high quality gloss photo paper. When I send print files to him, what soft proof setting should I set it to. My prints do come back just a hair darker than I would like so should I just brighten the image 10% or so to make up for the loss of light or is there a "general setting I can use for "general photo papers" that "he" seems to think handle most photo printing needs? Thanks again for all of your very helpful videos!
I'm glad you like the video but to answer your question, I have good and bad news. The bad news is that you aren't going to achieve an accurate print without a profile for the ink and paper. I also can't give you any general settings that will work in this situation. The good news is that gloss paper tends to be much closer to what you see on screen than matte paper and so requires less adjustment in soft proofing. It's probably why you only see the prints looking slightly darker than your screen. You probably have three possible solutions 1) move to a printer who can provide profiles for you to use. 2) You could try lightening your prints slightly but you would need to experiment by how much using a print test chart (you should be able to find one on the internet for free). I'm also assuming you have a correctly calibrated display before doing this or you might find your screen is the problem and not the printer. 3) Pay to have a custom profile made. This would require you having a test print made which you would send off to have analysed. You may find your printer would agree to printing the test chart for free if you give him a copy of the custom profile. That does assume the printers he uses are all the same make/model. If they aren't, this isn't worth doing.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks Robin...great tips here and I will try a few of them but trial and error maybe the only thing I've got. I love my print shop but they could be a little better in the technical aspect of things...Thanks again and I enjoy your channel!!
@@ZenMastaKai I hope it works out.
Ah, this is what I was looking for, thanks Robin, this tutorial is very useful.
Btw, one question, if I use soft proof adjustment to check the gamut. Do I also have to convert the document to cmyk too for printing? Or it's not necessary, because the color and gamut have been configured and matched.
Thanks. Unless you are using a CMYK printing press, leave the document in RGB. For inkjet printers leave the document in RGB.
excellent video! One question I have is do we print the pictures in 'absolute colourmetric' to match the soft proofing option?
Thank you. Yes, print to match the Soft Proof.
@@RobinWhalley Thanks for the reply (I know I'm 2 years late but I'm revisiting the video and noticed I didn't say thanks!!)
An issue I don't understand is that if I soft proof an RGB image, creating adjustment layers to bring colours back into the gamut for a particular CMYK profile, I can produce something that looks acceptable BUT if I then *convert* the image to the same CMYK profile the adjusted areas look completely different to the soft proof... Surely they should not be altered on conversion as they are now within the CMYK gamut. If I must submit files in CMYK format to be printed should I skip soft proofing and simply convert and adjust?
Whilst I never use CMYK, I would Soft Proof after converting to CMYK. That way you should get what you see. I just tried it on a couple of images picking a standard press print setting and it seems to work fine.
robin, thanks for the video. i came to a screeching halt rather quickly because i don't have paper profiles. i assume said profiles are downloaded from manufacturer website. i have been unable to find a method for importing. can you help please?
Yes, you need to download the profiles from the paper manufacturers site. These usually come with a set of instructions describing how to install them. With Windows its easy, you just need to double click the profile file or right click and choose install. On a Mac you need to copy the profile to a location I can never remember. I don't know which paper you're using, but here's a link to the Fotospeed generic profiles page as an example. www.fotospeed.com/profiles.asp?SeriesID=9&TextID=1 Try downloading one of their profiles and looking at the instructions in the zip file.
I'm not sure I understood the very last part. Should you export the file with or without the ajustements you made? If it without, how would it work at the printer ? I think I got it now i asked but i'd like to read an answer :). thanks for the video
If you're going to print from another application rather than C1, export it with the adjustments and the profile applied.
EXCELLENT
Many thanks!
This is the first video I found which really explained the soft-proofing and the gamut check 👍, but one thing is still not clear for me.
At 9:36 I read that you should turn off your soft proofing layers before printing, but at 9:59 I heard you say that you turn then back on when you sent it to the printer. The latter seems logical to me, as that is what you like.
Only now I have the question about what is the correct way. Did I misunderstand what you meant?
If I said that then it was a mistake. Turn the layer off before printing.
@@RobinWhalley i
Thanks Robin. You’ll probably be right, but then I don’t understand it. With soft-proofing you make the corrections needed to match your print with what you see on the screen as close as possible. For me it sounds logical that you print with the soft proofing layers as these hold the needed corrections whereas without the layers you lost these and imo the print would come out wrong. What am I missing?
@@Martingj56 All the soft Proof layer is doing is making the image look like it will when printed.
Given we have the simulate ink and paper option turned on, the image won't look as good as on screen (without softtproof). We therefore need to adjust it to make it look as we want it to appear when printed.
Then turn off the softproof layer because when you send it to the printer, the printer is going to make it look like the soft proof layer did. Think of it as swapping the soft proof layer with the printer. Does that help at all?
@@RobinWhalley It’s clear now, i mixed the soft proof layer with print layer . Thanks for helping.
@@Martingj56 Great to hear that you traced the problem.
Since the interface of Affinity Photo 2 is quire different have you considered updating this video to reflect the differences.
I hadn't considered updating the video as I didn't think the interface had changed very much.
I had to spend a little time but I worked it out. Your video is great@@RobinWhalley
very nicely made, i am a bit confused because at the end you say to turn the soft proof layer off and then back on when you come to print, i thought i had seen an affinity instruction video about a year ago on youtube that said to be sure to turn the soft proofing off ?
Thanks. I think what I was trying to say in the video is that if you make any adjustments to the image to compensate for the effect of printing then you need to turn those on. But you only turn them on for printing. Regarding the soft proofing layer, then turn that off for printing and also whilst doing your general editing. I hope that makes sense.
@@RobinWhalley thanks robin, i think its slowly sinking in, it takes a lot to get it through sometimes, old age and ignorance.
And it's not simple either.
@@RobinWhalley thanks for that robin, keep up the great videos, you are very good at it.
i do not have a printer, intending to send files out. it has been difficult to find paper profiles. where can one find them?
another issue is the printer itself. if sending out for printing, consumers have no way of knowing which printer is being used. as i understand it, correct color requires a printer/paper profile used in tandem. have i missed something?
You don't need to know which printer the lab is using. You just need them to supply you with the correct profile. Many of the online labs publish these in their FAQ section. Here's an example from Peak Imaging in the UK www.peak-imaging.com/about/monitor.calibration If they don't publush a profile, try emailling and asking the question.
I think I'm missing something with this process. Once you've added the soft proof and made adjustments, do you then flatten the layers and export as a jpeg? I'm guessing a printer wouldn't be able to deal with those separate layers. Yeah I'm a noob when it comes to printing 😁
I think the problem is that you were expecting to see a video about printing whilst this video is very specific and covers only soft proofing. What to do next depends on how you will print your images. If you are going to print them yourself from Affinity Photo you would turn off the soft proofing layer first. You can then use the print option from the File menu. If you are going to upload a JPEG to a print service, turn off the soft proofing layer and then export the image to a JPEG. I hope this helps.
Hi, very informative video, but I don't really get the point of the rendering intent. Since it only affects the soft proofing layer, which is turned of before printing, what difference does it make? I mean wouldn't the actual output device need to know what method was used to transform the colors in the same way? Also, you described that for example relative colormetric is mapping to the closest colors that are in gamut. Why then are there still any colors shown as out of gamut in the gamut check?
The rendering intent you decide to use in soft proofing is the one you should you should then use when printing. If you pick a different one the adjustment you made wont be optimal. All rendering intents remap OOG colours but in different ways. The soft proof is showing which ones will be remapped whilst showing you how that will look. Please read the soft proofing article on my website for more information (lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/capture-one-soft-proofing/).
Robin Whalley I see, that makes sense. Thank you. The question came up for me, because I don’t actually print it myself. I was trying to prepare a picture for having it printed using the ICC profile they provided. It’s not really possible to tell them which rendering intent I was using to base my adjustments on.
@@srwx Most labs I've used tend to use Perceptual rendering by default. It may be checking with them. If you can find out what they use then just use that when Soft Proofing.
Robin Whalley Thanks again, that’s very helpful
p.s. should you merge before you print ?
There's no value in merging the layers that I'm aware of at least so I wouldn't do it.
I am puzzled as to what to do next if I wish to send this to an external print house. Do I turn off the soft proof layer and then go to Document and convert to the correct ICC profile and save?
There is a small additional step involved if you're going to send the image to a third party for print. Once you've done the soft proofing you should have a soft proof layer and probably a couple more adjustment layers that are just for print. The "print only" adjustments are to make the soft proof look correct and handle any out of gamut colours. What you need to do is turn off the soft proof layer but leave the other "print only" adjustments on. Export this image to a file and then send that to the printer. Best sure when you are soft proofing to use the ICC profile supplied by the printer and not a generic one. I would also suggest doing a simple test print first to be sure you have the process right.
When I am soft proofing I do use the ICC profile given but then when I save do I have to apply the ICC profile following the command under "Document" 'Convert ICC profile'?@@RobinWhalley
If you've gone through the soft proofing you don't need to convert to the ICC profile. The ICC profile is only required for the soft proofing. You should though use a suitable colour space like Adobe RGB. In the soft proofing process, your adjustments have mapped your editing colour space to the target ICC profile that will be used for printing. That's why you have Out of Gamut colours/tones that you correct. Just export the image with the same colour space you have been doing your editing in.
According to my experience Affinity Photo softproof shows a much wider color range as out of gamut than Photoshop or Lightroom do with the same picture and proofing profile. Do you have any experience in comparison to softproof in Photoshop? Either Photoshop or Affinity seem to show a wrong out of gamut range.
Whilst I haven't made any comparisons, I did notice when making the video that Affinity does report more of the image as being Out of Gamut compared to the likes of Lightroom. I did a brief check and it seemed that it was due mainly to very dark areas showing as Out of Gamut because a true black can't be reproduced by the printer and paper. I don't believe the likes of Lightroom and Photoshop report black pixels in this way but I may be wrong. As I say, I didn;t investigate any further.
Unfortunately the soft-proof bears no relationship at all to the final print.
Are you saying your soft proof doesn't look like your final print?
Not at all. The soft-proofed image certainly doesn't look any more like the print than does the non-soft-proofed screen image.
@@johnstolz18 Did you adjust the image and then turn off the Soft Proofing adjustment layer? If you were using a gloss paper then it might also account for there not being much difference. Gloss paper typically doesn't require as much adjustment as a Matte paper.
@@RobinWhalley Yes I turned off the soft-proof layer. The print doesn't remotely match the soft-proofed image on the screen. Colours and tonality are entirely different.
@@johnstolz18 Well I can only think your monitor calibration is out. I achieve a very close match with this approach.
@Adobe Photoshop: learn from Affinity Photo :D
My images look great in Affinity Photo, but as soon as I put them into either Instagram or Vero, they are darker. Any ideas what could be causing this?
My best guess is that you are exporting them in a colour space that these apps don't like. Check in the Advanced settings of the export dialog that the new image used sRGB. That may solve the problem.
@@RobinWhalley I think I’ve been doing it in adobe rgb. I’ve now tried converting to srgb first and it seems better, if not perfect.
Thanks for your help.
This really is a great help! Thanks
Glad it was helpful! Thank you.
Thank you!
You're welcome!