Photoshop Colour Management

Part 4 - Viewing Colour ('Soft Proofing')

In Adobe Photoshop (CC & CS versions) there is a very useful, but little-known, feature which enables us to get a pretty good idea, or 'proof', of how an image might look when printed, or even when viewed on the Web or in an email. Lightroom has similar functionality, which is a little easier to use. Many other photo-editing applications have similar, but often less sophisticated, functionality.

Traditionally, at first in the commercial printing industry and later in photography, a 'proof' was a quick print produced to evaluate an image or text before the final 'print run' of the job. It was originally made on a smaller and simpler version of a printing press, while later photographic processes, such as 'Cromalin', were used. All of these proofs, were of course, 'hard' proofs. These were submitted by the prepress or printing company to the client, usually a publishing or advertising company, for approval.

All of this cost time and money. So these days, a 'soft' proof is made on a computer display. This can be used by photographers before committing the image to an inkjet printer, and potentially wasting expensive paper and ink.

As this utilizes the monitor to simulate a printer, such as an inkjet or a large commercial printing press, or even the 'average' computer screen, it requires our monitor to be well calibrated and profiled of course! We also need to have an accurate ICC Printer Profile for our printer with the required paper. We can also use 'Soft Proofing' to simulate a printing process in the case of offset litho, etc. Photoshop will use this printer profile as a 'reference'.

Your monitor should, if possible, be capable of accurately displaying your image. Ideally, it should be capable of displaying in the wide-gamut Adobe RGB (1998) colour space. Also bear in mind that your printer will have a different colour gamut than most RGB 'Working Spaces', larger in a few colours but smaller in others.

It must be emphasised that these soft proof settings only affect the on-screen appearance of the image, and not directly the final result on paper. They can be used to test different paper types (via printer profiles), rendering intents, etc., in order to view the effect before committing to Print. Late apply the same settings while printing from an inkjet printer, or simply saving the image.

Using soft proofing, together with proper monitor calibration, AND with accurate printer profiles, is the only way to get a reasonably accurate match between monitor and print. Even so, it must be stated that you cannot expect a perfect match owing to the vast differences in technologies; reflected versus transmitted light, for example. Not to mention glossy screens or cheap laptop screens where the image appearance varies with the viewing angle.

Proof Setup Menu:

The menus shown here were made with Photoshop CC 2020, but CS is similar, and Lightroom has similar functionality but with simpler controls. Other applications, such as Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo, often have simpler 'soft proofing' but with varying results.

To use soft proofing select View and toggle Proof Colors, tick on/off (or Command/Alt Y) while displaying an image.

When you wish to change your proofing conditions select the View / Proof Setup menu.

You will see several presets for common conditions, including any which you have previously saved for your own conditions.

Here you will see Custom... which we will return to later.
The current preset, which will be the default if you haven't changed it, will have a tick against it. In this case it's one which I've made for my SP3880 printer.

Working CMYK: This will be the CMYK printing condition defined in the Color Settings menu. That is the ICC profile, such as 'FOGRA 39',  with the associated Rendering Intent, etc. These CMYK settings are for the Publishing and Printing industries with offset litho, etc. printing, so absolutely nothing to do with photo inkjets!

Working Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and CMY, etc.: Displays individual or groups of colour channels using the working CMYK set-up. These proofs were known as 'progressives' in the printing industry a long time ago, and will be of little use today.
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(Legacy) Macintosh RGB and Windows RGB: Displays images as a basic (non-calibrated) cheap monitor might. Useful for checking images destined for the web, as is the more modern Internet Standard RGB.
Monitor RGB: Image displayed using your monitor profile and no further colour management.
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Colour Blindness settings: How people with two of the common forms of colour blindness might perceive colour.
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Individual Presets: Settings you have previously saved and named.

Custom...

Displays a new menu where you select or create 'presets' representing different printing and viewing conditions. 

This menu allows you to define a particular proofing condition, either as a one-off for the current image, or to save as a preset.

This is also very useful to test how individual images will look when printed with different profiles, rendering intents, etc., perhaps before conversion.

Custom Proof Conditions: Either select Custom or another preset as a basis, and then modify this.

Proof Conditions

Device to Simulate: Select your chosen device's (printer, etc.) ICC profile here.

Preserve RGB/CMYK Numbers: Will normally be OFF. The main exception is in CMYK commercial printing use, where images are often already in the correct colour space and will receive no further colour management transforms. When ticked, Rendering Intents will not be selectable, and the image should be displayed as the press will print it. Any colour management MUST be applied before viewing. Normally used in Printing & Publishing industries with final images. It can also be used if you print RGB (or Grayscale) images through a RIP to an inkjet printer.

Rendering Intent: This defines how the colour reproduction process should cope with colours and tones which are outside of, or near the edge of, the device's colour gamut, to achieve the desired colour 'rendering'. Normally select Relative, or if the image has a very large colour gamut, perhaps Perceptual. Note that Absolute is used for 'hard proofing' only, and almost never Saturation unless reproducing logos, etc. More Rendering Intent info.

Soft proofing is very useful in choosing the best rendering intent for each image.

Black Point Compensation: Typically the input colour space (camera etc.) will have a darker black point than that of the output print. If Black Point Compensation ('BPC') is not used, the shadow areas could be filled-in, losing detail in the output image. This feature is especially useful when using the Relative Intent. It should normally be left ON, although it may unavailable in Adobe Illustrator, Elements, etc.

     Relative Rendering with 'BPC'.                             Relative Rendering without 'BPC'.

These two versions of the same shot show the effect of using Black Point Compensation ('BPC'). Your viewing of the differences will depend on your monitor however! In the left image the effect of BPC can be seen in the tyre, particularly at the top left, which is no longer 'filled-in'. The saturated reds are also very subtly different.

Display Options (On-Screen):

How to Simulate the Actual Paper Color

Without these refinements the image display will probably look a little too contrasty when compared to the actual print, with the white areas being too bright and probably the wrong 'colour' and the black areas appearing too dark. These controls define how the white and black of the print will be somewhat 'degraded' when viewed on the screen, due to the difference in the characteristics of the emissive monitor versus the reflected print, with their different profiles. The effect looks a little over-done at first!

Simulate Paper Color: When selected, the paper colour simulation will run throughout the on-screen image's tonal range, as it will in the final print. If your paper has a 'blueish' white, such as that found with optical brighteners (fluorescent whitening agents), the effect will be quite pronounced. These OBAs are used in almost all 'Glossy' papers, even some well-respected quality brands. You may wish to experiment with this control. The effect can appear 'over done', which it possibly is somewhat. You may want to look away from the screen for a few seconds to acclimatise.
This control will ensure that the Media white-point tristimulus table found in your ICC printer profile is actually used.

Simulate Black Ink: This will dull the black point (not just 'Black Ink') of the viewed image, reducing the contrast range, to match the printed result. Can be used without Simulate Paper Color, but it will come on automatically if Simulate Paper Color is selected. This effect will be more pronounced with some paper types than others. Papers with a lot of 'OBAs' (Optical Brightening Agents) will appear rather 'blueish' and a little 'duller' in the white areas, especially when compared to 'baryta' papers. Matte papers will appear very dull in the black areas.
If your printer, ink and paper produce a good dense black the effect will be very subtle.
This control will ensure that the Media black-point tristimulus table found in your ICC printer profile is actually used.

Save these 'Paper Colour' Settings. It's a good idea to save a separate Setting for the paper colour, in order to be able to easily switch Simulate Paper Color On/Off.

This image of a lovely old Spitfire as edited and without Soft Proofing.

Now with Soft Proofing to a Profile for Ilford Gold Fibre Silk. This was a very high quality 'Baryta' type paper, with a very bright and neutral white, which had a low amount of OBAs.
The left image is Soft Proofed only. This has changed very little, with the black areas being just a little lighter.
The right image also has Simulate Paper Color checked. There are subtle changes, mostly to the whites, the tarmac and the sky.

This is Soft Proofing to a Profile for Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss. This is a fairly high quality 'Glossy' type paper, with a fairly bright and 'blueish' white, which has quite a high amount of OBAs.
The left image is Soft Proofed only. This has also changed very little, with the black areas being just a little lighter.
The right image also has Simulate Paper Color (Simulate Paper & Ink in Lightroom) checked. There are noticeable changes, especially to the whites and sky, but also through the mid-tones.

This control will adjust the 'contrast' of the (displayed) image's white and black areas to more closely match those of the printer's paper. This won't affect the final print of course!

The ability to 'Simulate Paper Color' properly sets Photoshop (and Lightroom) apart from the vast majority of other applications, which although they mostly offer 'Soft Proofing', they lack this critical function.

However, you, along with many others, will probably struggle to get matte papers looking correct! Leave setting up matte paper soft proofing to last, unless you only use matte paper. You may just have to find the best compromise.

Save & Recall the settings:

Save: These settings should be saved with a new name. Save may not take you to the correct location, which on a Mac is  User-name/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Proofing.

Preview: You need to check this to see the proofing effect. Toggle on/off .

Proof Colors: or Command Y (Mac) To see the proofing effect (toggle on/off).

Paper Type:

It has to be said that different paper types have a great effect, with matte paper being the most difficult to simulate correctly. If your monitor is one of the very few which allows it, you may want to have a different setup, especially brightness, for matte papers than for most gloss types. Papers with a high amount of OBAs may also be difficult, with 'Paper Color' being interpreted as too 'blue'. You should flick between 'Paper Color' On/Off.

Soft Proofing in other Image Editing Applications

Several other applications feature Soft Proofing, but very few, if any, handle it as well as Photoshop and Lightroom. A particular failing of some is the inability to display 'paper colour' well. One workaround is to recalibrate your monitor to better match your paper type. This is easier with some displays (some Eizos, etc.) where several settings can be stored and recalled in a matter of seconds.

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This page updated January 9, 2025