Soft proofing in Curvemeister 2

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-default
Posts: 1916
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:53 am

Postby -default » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:14 am

Today I got a feature request from an experienced customer: support for Photoshop's soft proofing feature.  It turns out that the feature has been in there for some time.  After a request from that source of great feature suggestions, Derek Fountain, as of version 2.4.0, Curvemeister has had support for soft proofing.

Obviously, I haven't publicized this enough, and I hope to address that now.

Note: if you are using Elements, then this feature will not work for you, since Elements does not support soft proofing.  Also, if you are using Curvemeister 1, use of soft proofing requires Curvemeister version 2.4.0.  Curvemeister 2 owners with older versions can download the latest version of Curvemeister at no charge

Soft Proofing - a Quick Intro
Soft proofing was added to Photoshop 5.5, and at that time it allowed commercial printing folks to see what their RGB image would look like when converted to CMYK.  As of Photoshop 6, soft proofing was extended to support previewing what colors would look like when converted to a particular RGB profile.  This allowed people to preview inkjet output, as well as to see what their images would look like outside of Photoshop displayed on various monitors, or in non-color aware application such as Explorer.

The internals of how soft proofing works are quite clever, involving several profile conversions.  The first conversion uses the output or "proof" profile, and the final conversion uses your monitor profile's "Absolute Colorimetric intent".  In effect your monitor is used as a proofing device, simulating the colors on your output device as closely as possible, and the result is a soft proof.

For soft proofing to work, you need a good monitor profile and an accurate profile for your output device.  This is often easier said than done.  Try it out if you are curious and see if soft proofing is for you.  It's a feature that many people find useful.

Using Soft Proofing in Curvemeister
This is the easy part.  For Curvemeister to support soft proofing, you must check the box that says "Support Soft Proof" (see image), and enable the usual soft proofing options in Photoshop.  Gamut warning works as well.


DougJ
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 4:39 am

Postby DougJ » Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:40 am

I was quite unaware of this, Mike, and I would now like to try it.

I routinely using use soft proofing in CS3, using the methodology found in the Reichman / Schewe video series, "From Camera to Print."

What is the methodology for soft proofing with C2 / C3?

TIA for your pointers.

Ciao,

Doug

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Posts: 1916
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:53 am

Postby -default » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:30 am

Turn on soft proofing in Photoshop before starting Curvemeister 2 or 3.  Curvemeister will use the soft proof setting in effect when it was started.


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