Understanding ICC profiles and fine art printing

A favorite photo lab of mine is having a printing sale and I'm hoping to take advantage of the discount to make some high quality prints of some color negative photos. I am having some trouble understanding the proper work flow when it comes to soft proofing, monitor calibration, and ICC profiles.

I own a X-Rite iDisplay studio and have used it to calibrate my monitor. When I do that, it creates an ICC profile that I assume I need to use on my PC for my monitor. Is this the correct way to use that profile?

When it comes to soft proofing my final image in Photoshop (or Lightroom), do I need to use a specific ICC profile? Does this profile need to correspond to a specific printer/paper combination? Photoworks, the lab, referred me to use the AdobeRGB 98 color profile for Giclee prints, which are the prints I'd be making. I hope this all makes sense, I am just a little confused as to how to use the ICC profiles for each step.

When you calibrate your monitor, the software creates a profile of your screen. You don't need to do anything with this; your computer's operating system automatically uses this and any imaging software like photoshop will use it. Printers haveseparate ICC profiles, and every printer/ink/paper combination needs a separate profile. So if you have a printer and you use four different papers, each paper needs a profile of its own.

Adobe RGB(1998) is not a printer profile; it is a colorspace used for photo editing. sRGB is another editing color space that is commonly used. If your lab is telling you to submit files in a working space like Adobe RGB, then that means they're converting the image to the printer profile for you and you do not have to worry about soft proofing.

Aviv said:

When it comes to soft proofing my final image in Photoshop (or Lightroom), do I need to use a specific ICC profile? Does this profile need to correspond to a specific printer/paper combination?

Click to expand...

Yes to your question about soft proofing: you have to use the icc profile for the particular paper/printer combo and the appropriate Rendering Intent within Photoshop (View>Proof Setup>Custom.) The icc profile should come from your print lab. You use it only for simulation to make sure the output is to your liking. Then send the file as is to the printer.

:Niranjan.

chriscrawfordphoto said:

Adobe RGB(1998) is not a printer profile; it is a colorspace used for photo editing. sRGB is another editing color space that is commonly used. If your lab is telling you to submit files in a working space like Adobe RGB, then that means they're converting the image to the printer profile for you and you do not have to worry about soft proofing.

Click to expand...

This makes sense to me. They don't list which specific Epson/Canon printers they use, so I'm assuming then that they will properly convert the image for me depending on which printer they choose to use for the print.

nmp said:

Yes to your question about soft proofing: you have to use the icc profile for the particular paper/printer combo and the appropriate Rendering Intent within Photoshop (View>Proof Setup>Custom.) The icc profile should come from your print lab. You use it only for simulation to make sure the output is to your liking. Then send the file as is to the printer.

:Niranjan.

Click to expand...

This makes sense regarding soft proofing. Someday when I have my own printer, this will probably be the best approach.

Thank you both! This has really helped. I was quite confused and this cleared things up a bit.

Aviv said:

They don't list which specific Epson/Canon printers they use, so I'm assuming then that they will properly convert the image for me depending on which printer they choose to use for the print.

Click to expand...

Some labs will share the ICC profile for the printer they are using.
Even Costco used to do this!
Ask the lab if they offer that, and where you can access them.
If you are able to access them, then you can (with a lot of digital post processing software) download that ICC profile to the appropriate location on your computer and then link to that profile in the "proofing" part of the Colour Management portion of your digital post processing software.
If you print to a number of different printers, you can choose the correct profile for the targeted printer.
You, can then, in the proofing mode, toggle back and forth between the generic profile you do most of your work in, and the ICC profile that yields a more accurate representation of how the print will actually look.
If you do lots of printing at that lab, it may help to automate adjustments that tend to correct for that printer's characteristics.

Just one example of what you should be looking for: https://www.whitewall.com/us/service/faq/proofs-icc-profile/

This printing service has a download section with ICC profiles. Download the ones matching the prints you want to order and use that profile to soft-proof.