Whitewall: embed ICC profile or not when sending TIFF

Philippe Rouquet

• November 25, 2015 10:55

I attended the webinar "Process to Print" with David last October where he outlines the process of sending images to the lab "Whitewall" by using the Process recipe and doing the soft-proofing using the lab's ICC profile. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x151BfYJN0]

If I understood correctly, we output to TIFF 8bits (Whitewall requirement) and embed Whitewall's ICC Profile corresponding to the print media of the lab that we chose?

However, in an email communication, Whitewall says the following :
"We can accept any RGB or CMYK color space, but if no ICC profile is embedded we will asume it is sRGB.
We do not advice you to use our ICC profiles as the colour space, the conversion to the destination output should be done by us to maximize image quality. The ICC profiles we provide are suitable for softproofing, but your file should not be converted to it's colour space. if you prefer a large Gamut working space Adobe RGB is a better option, but you must make sure the ICC profile is embedded so it is treated as Adobe RGB, not sRGB."

So Whitewall says not to embed their ICC profile but only use it for soft-proofing, which is also what Saal Digital is saying.

So, If I understood correctly the Process Recipe should use Adobe RGB or sRGB as the output ICC profile when saving to TIFF. We should only load the print media ICC profile form Whitewall to do the soft-proofing but not use it for output.

Is this correct?

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  Andriy.Okhrimets

  • November 26, 2015 16:01

  yes, this quite common process, so sRGB is always preffered way, because profiles they provide are only for soft proofing.

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  Philippe Rouquet

  • November 27, 2015 17:24

  Thank you for clarifying.
  
  What about output sharpening with these printing labs?
  
  Do you disable it or leave it on?
  
  Best
  Philippe Rouquet

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  Andriy.Okhrimets

  • December 08, 2015 13:08

  Depends from a lab, I usually do small amount of sharpening, but it also depends from a size which I am printing. Bigger size image I am printing usually smaller amount of sharpening applied, to remove visible artefacts. But I do extensively use clarity.

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  Alan OBrien

  • February 28, 2017 19:29

  I just finished watching this same webinar and this is exactly the same question I had, but hope to get just a bit more clarification of what happens on the lab end (and what will the end printed result be?)...
  
  In the webinar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x151BfYJN0), David Grover, explains that White Wall image requirements are:
  

  300 dpi
  8-bit
  sRGB embeded profile

  
  
  He then creates a recipe using the White Wall ICC profile, then processes/outputs the file (embedding the White Wall ICC Profile), then later explains the upload process to the lab (using the file with the White Wall ICC profile). (Granted, he fielded many questions between those two steps. Therefore, I'm guessing that he might have lost track and might not have intended to process/upload the file with the embedded White Wall ICC profile, especially given the lab's requirement of an sRGB profile).
  
  So... if I understand correctly, files should be edited/processed and proofed using the lab profile which can be done either via:
  View > Proof Profile > Your chosen lab profile, or
  View > Proof Profile > Selected Recipe (and selecting the recipe with the labs ICC Profile)
  
  Then, after competing the processing of the file using the lab's ICC profile, I would need to select a different recipe that has sRBG as the ICC Profile and process/output a file to send to the lab.
  
  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this so far, but I think I got that down.
  
  Assuming that I am correct on the above... what happens when it's processed by the lab?
  I ask because I have two recipes:
  

  -one using the lab's profile
  -the second using sRGB

  
  
  When I toggle between them, they look significantly different.
  
  For the record, my Proof Profile setting is to soft-proof "selected recipe."
  So my confusion lies in this... I corrected the image to my liking using the lab ICC profile, but when I change my selected recipe to the sRGB recipe in order to process/output the file, the result is darker and more saturated.
  
  So... to put a finer point on this question, when this goes to print, will the lab:
  

  A. revert back to their profile when they print (yielding a print similar to my soft-proofed image using the lab's ICC profile), or
  B. print according to the darker, more saturated sRGB (yielding a print similar to the sRGB recipe/output file)

  
  
  Thanks,
  
  Alan

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