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Color proofing

headincloud

Hi,

I'm new to the world of Capture One and color profiles, and I am totally confused on how this all works. This how I have set it up so far:

  1. I bought an XRite calibrator, and ran the software to create a ICC profile for my monitor. This profile is now the active profile for my monitor.

  2. In C1, under "View->Proof Profile", I selected "No profile". From what I understand, this means it uses the system ICC profile aka the calibrated one I created. If this is not the correct way, please do tell :)

  3. I created Export Recipes with the ICC profiles of my printing partner.

  4. I added the "Proofing" button to my toolbar. I select one of the recipes I created in the step above, and hit the Proofing button. This shows me how it should look like on print.

Now, step 2 is the part where I am not sure this the right approach. I found many articles that say that you should edit in ProPhoto RGB mode. Does this mean I should create an export recipe with the ProPhoto ICC profile, and use that as the Proof Profile instead of "No profile"? And if this is so, why is this not the default setting for C1?

I find all of this very confusing, and C1 documentation lacking as well. I understand LightRoom always uses ProPhoto RGB during editing, so I wonder why C1 decided to take an all other and more confusing approach, and not giving us the best default out of the box??

 

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Comments

3 comments

Date Votes
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Step 4 a. Check that your Rendering Intent in preferences matches what your printing partner tells you. It can be different for different papers, or Alu Dibond, etc.

    Step 5 is, with proofing (ICC profile of the printer/paper) enabled, adjust colors and foremost contrast. Best you do this with a variant for your intended paper/print. For web, use sRGB.

    Step 6: Check with your partner but I think you need to provide your image file in a standard profile e.g. sRGB or AdobeRGB, so don't export with the printer/paper profile

    Step 7: Compare the final print with the image variant with soft-proofing the printer/paper ICC profile. Search for errors if there are any, and be prepared that especially contrast and brightness will most likely differ from the soft-proof, due to different technologies (printer vs.. monitor), regardless of soft-proofing. Adjust your habit

    I found many articles that say that you should edit in ProPhoto RGB mode.

    Not necessarily.C1 uses in internal working space, there some documentation in the online manual or somewhere here on the C1 page.

    Something around those lines. I hope I did not tell you something completely wrong. Printing is an art (but I am not a printing artist). Expect surprises, so before printing big and expensive, consider cheaper hard-proofs (e.g. smaller or cropped versions of your image) with that printing partner.

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  • headincloud

    BeO Thanks for the clarification, it is most helpful :)

    So setting the "Proof profile" to "No profile" is correct thing to do right? It will use the default monitor ICC in this case, and this is set to the calibrated profile,right? I'm not doing anything stupid here? :D

     

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    I think so, yes. With no profile you work in the C1 internal color space, only limited by the gamut of your profiled monitor. For me it is a little different as I have a hardware-calibrated (not profiled) monitor, that's similar but a little different, but I think you're doing it right. I would edit the main variant with no proof and then make a variant for each print, note the print variant purpose e.g. as a keyword. 

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