Improve contrast printing on fine art paper - Canon 9500

[melmann]

<p>I'm using CS5 and NIK plug-ins to generate B&W images - some directly digital, some scanned from film. What I'm seeing on the screen after all my adjustments and applying paper profiles (Canon Photo Rag and Hahnemuhle Bamboo & Photo Rag) looks nice - rich blacks, nicely graduated tones. When I hit the "Simulate Paper Color" box it immediately looks like I dropped a foggy piece of transparency over the image. Contrast falls significantly and blacks turn grey.<br>

Is there a technique in CS5 or NIK to compensate for this fog so my prints will come out with more contrast or at least look like they do before I apply the paper color simulator? When I change the brightness or contrast using Levels or Curves it makes the tones muddy instead of clearing up the fog. The NIK Pro Contrast and Tonal Contrast tools do the same.<br>

The prints sometimes come out clear and sometimes not - seems to depend on the subject matter and adjustments. I'd prefer to have more confidence that what's on my screen will show up on the paper.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Simply put, paper can't duplicate the contrast range you see on your monitor. Blacks will be washed out and paper is not as bright. You must also be aware of gamut limitations in the printer.</p>

<p>Most of the change appears when you "Simulate Black Ink". Paper color may just be a distraction for now. For a good primer in soft proofing, look at <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.shtml">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.shtml</a></p>

<p>You must know that paper profiles are to be applied at the time of printing. You should never assign/convert the color space to a print or monitor profile. They should always be in a device-independent color space like Adobe RGB or Prophoto RGB (sRGB is too narrow for printing/editing).</p>

[melmann]

<p>Edward,<br>

Thanks for that link - it does describe the workflow I follow and I get the results described. For color prints I've found increasing the brightness around 30% helps. For out of gamut I've found changing to a different but similar profile might help (Canon's Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss has a couple of profiles available, for example) and I can use Select>Color Range>Out of Gamut to make a selection for the Hue/Saturation adjustment. I do all of this before turning on the "Simulate Paper Color" switch.</p>

<p>All my images are converted to AdobeRGB before printing.</p>

<p>For B&W, though, I don't really have a good workflow that consistently delivers good results on the papers I use. Feels like it's always guesswork, even when I use the profiles for the specific paper type. I'm trying to duplicate the richness I see from photographic papers and maybe that's my hurdle. Should I use a different color space (Greyscale?) or make adjustments in the LAB mode before printing?</p>

<p>Thanks for the comments.</p>