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Gamma 2.2 profile for Lightroom soft proof


djmay

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Not specific to the S, but since I use it for B&W photography, I am about to make a ~2 meter print on an Ilford photographic paper that uses Gamma 2.2 profile. Supposedly the Gamma 2.2 profile is integrated in Lightroom 6, however, I cannot find it anywhere.

 

Can any of you Lightroom experts guide me on how to soft proof with a Gamma 2.2 profile?

 

I will be exporting to a tif file (about 100 mb), which I will send to the printer.

 

Jesse

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Uhh - no. Gamma 2.2 is a "working space" for pure grayscale images (i.e. those that are not just desaturated 3-channel RGB images, but actually only have a single gray channel from black to white).

 

It is analogous to a "Color Space" for color pictures (e.g. Adobe 1998, or sRGB) - except, no color. No D65, since that is a White Point color temperature definition between blue and yellow and meaningless in a B&W image.

 

An RGB picture - even if desaturated to "look" like a B&W picture - cannot be assigned a "Gamma" profile. You must first set your Working Grayscale preference to "Gamma 2.2" (Photoshop > Edit Menu > Color Settings) - and then also convert the actual image itself from RGB to Grayscale, at which point it will automatically acquire the current Working Grayscale attribute.

 

That's how Photoshop works - for LightRoom, look in the EDIT menu near the bottom for "Color Settings." Or check the manual for color settings.

 

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Never confuse the following three items - they are very different and cannot be substituted for one another, even though they sometimes have very similar names.

 

Color Space/Grayscale Space - the "room" in which the colors or grays of your image data are defined as you work with them on the computer. A big room (Adobe 1998), a smaller room (sRGB), or a very narrow room (grays only, no colors - Gamma 1.8 or Gamma 2.2).

 

You choose these as a part of setting up your preferences for LR or Photoshop the very first time you use them, and generally never change them again.

 

Monitor Profile - the settings of your monitor, including a gamma (essentially, a contrast curve) and a White Point (e.g. 6500°K - how yellow or blue or neutral your monitor will display a neutral white/gray) and a color-adjustment table.

 

You use a measuring device to measure and calibrate your screen (to make grays measure dead neutral with no color tint, and a yellow-red measure as yellow-red instead of pink-red etc.) Or sometimes short-cut software provide by the manufacturer. The results of that measurement get stored in your computer settings as the profile.

 

Printer Profile - a carefully measured set of mathematical data conversions - per paper brand/type/name/surface/whiteness -  to make a print (dyes or liquid ink on paper) look as much as possible like the picture on a computer screen (glowing backlit LCD pixels).

 

You get these - per paper type - from the printer and/or paper manufacturers. E.G. "SC-P800 Ultra Premium Luster Photo Paper." Or if you prefer, you can make test prints yourself and measure their colors with a device to find out how "wrong" your printer is without a profile, and then produce a profile (another conversion table) that will "convert" on the fly as you print, your picture data into printer data that should better approximate the colors of that picture as seen on your monitor.

 

Trying to use a Monitor profile or a Color Space as a Printer profile (or even equate them) makes as little sense as "If I paint my book red, it will sound like a jet plane" - and certainly will never make a print "look like" the monitor does. Like trying to make pies with cement instead of flour. ;)

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@adan,

 

Thank you for your reply. I use a BenQ SW2700PT monitor. I calibrated with Colormunki at D50, 100 cd/m2. When working Lightroom 6, I convert to B&W. I do not work in color and desaturate.

 

I use Whitewall for printing. They have profiles for all papers except the Ilford B&W papers. For these, there is a note to use Gamma 2.2. That is the reason for my confusion. I do not understand how I can Soft Proof an image.

 

Jesse

 

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After a little research:

 

You cannot do exactly what you want in LightRoom - it is simply more limited than full PhotoShop. It doesn't "believe in" soft-proofing or printing actual single-channel grayscale B&W images. Which are not the same thing as "looks like B&W on my screen, as converted visually from full-color Leica S raw data by LR6." A dirty little secret - when you switch to "Black & White" in LR's developing module, LR is still just desaturating the image behind your back, not changing the underlying color data from your camera. It does thereby allow for "color filtering" to make skies dark or skin lighter or whatever - but only because the color data is still there behind the scenes.

 

LR assumes that if you yourself are printing to a local home printer, that your own printer profiles (as delivered on a disk with your printer) will correctly also print blacks, white and grays. And you can use those printer profiles for soft-proofing how your printer will reproduce the image. (Not a horrible assumption - that is how I print my own Leica M digital pictures, once converted to monochrome RGB).

 

The good news is that Adobe 1998 has a native gamma of 2.2 (along with color settings that won't matter), so for soft-proofing or exporting a TIFF, that may be a reasonably-accurate substitute. sRGB also uses a gamma of 2.2 - approximately. Not recommended, since it is a 20-year-old Microsoft/HP model designed for consumer and internet "pretty pictures," not professional-grade imaging.

 

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2710200

 

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/655654

 

Beyond that, you probably need to email WhiteWall directly, and present your problem. Even though it is not in their FAQ, they have probably heard the question before: "I want a true silver B&W LightJet/Ilford paper print from a digital image. LightRoom won't let me soft-proof or export with a Gamma 2.2 profile. How should I proceed, to get a print that accurately matches what LR is showing me on-screen?"

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As an aside, for these reasons and more, I vastly prefer to print through ImagePrint 10, which offers true gray scale profile options and far better, and continuous, soft proofing. I use LR, but set up IP as and external editor for printing.

 

But that's apart from your gamma question. (I use ProPhoto RGB for the largest color space option, with 16 bit to avoid banding or posterization.)

 

I agree with Andy's last point.... just ask the print shop to help.

 

Jeff

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After a little research:

 

You cannot do exactly what you want in LightRoom - it is simply more limited than full PhotoShop. It doesn't "believe in" soft-proofing or printing actual single-channel grayscale B&W images. Which are not the same thing as "looks like B&W on my screen, as converted visually from full-color Leica S raw data by LR6." A dirty little secret - when you switch to "Black & White" in LR's developing module, LR is still just desaturating the image behind your back, not changing the underlying color data from your camera. It does thereby allow for "color filtering" to make skies dark or skin lighter or whatever - but only because the color data is still there behind the scenes.

 

LR assumes that if you yourself are printing to a local home printer, that your own printer profiles (as delivered on a disk with your printer) will correctly also print blacks, white and grays. And you can use those printer profiles for soft-proofing how your printer will reproduce the image. (Not a horrible assumption - that is how I print my own Leica M digital pictures, once converted to monochrome RGB).

 

The good news is that Adobe 1998 has a native gamma of 2.2 (along with color settings that won't matter), so for soft-proofing or exporting a TIFF, that may be a reasonably-accurate substitute. sRGB also uses a gamma of 2.2 - approximately. Not recommended, since it is a 20-year-old Microsoft/HP model designed for consumer and internet "pretty pictures," not professional-grade imaging.

 

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2710200

 

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/655654

 

Beyond that, you probably need to email WhiteWall directly, and present your problem. Even though it is not in their FAQ, they have probably heard the question before: "I want a true silver B&W LightJet/Ilford paper print from a digital image. LightRoom won't let me soft-proof or export with a Gamma 2.2 profile. How should I proceed, to get a print that accurately matches what LR is showing me on-screen?"

If you are ever in Zürich, Switzerland, let me know and I will buy you a beer or other beverage of choice. ;)

 

I have been communicating with Whitewall and my contact does not have a LR solution; only Photoshop. If I still lived in Munich, I would go to the Whitewall shop, but I moved in March.

 

Next step is to order a set of test prints and evaluate.

 

Thank you for your input.

Jesse

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I made test prints on Ilford black and white, Fuji Crystal Print DP II and Kodak Pro Endura. Soft Proof, using Adobe RGB profile, works very well for the Ilford paper. It is closer to the print than either the Fuji or Kodak papers using their own profiles. Due to the client's size requirements (200cm x 133cm) I will make the final print on Kodak paper. The Kodak paper does a good job on black and white and it has good permanence; longer than mine ;)

 

 

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