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sd5e8a
Inspiring
October 6, 2022
Question

Overprint Preview, Proof Setup, Proof Colors

  • October 6, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 5614 views

As I see on this forum, there's a lot of confusion among the not-so-experienced users like me about: Overprint Preview, Proof Setup and Proof Colors. Depending on these settings, you get different results on the screen and you might even think that you have a problem with your images and you need to fix them.

 

Now I work on a project with lots of grayscale images (CMYK Black) and my color settings seem to be correct, and the proof setup is set to working CMYK, but if I turn on the Overprint Preview, the images look too bright and I can even notice some imperfections in them like noise, jpeg artefacts and stuff. Note that I've edited these images before for screen use (contrast / brightness, shadows / highlights and so forth).

 

Then, if I turn on Proof Colors - the sharpness is lost, everything looks dull or muddy. But when I choose a custom proof setup and when I set my CMYK profile there - suddenly everything looks nice. Should I rely on this or I'm confusing something?

 

Thanks

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    3 replies

    rob day
    rob day
    Adobe Expert
    October 6, 2022

    Note that I've edited these images before for screen use

     

    Also, what Gray Profile did you Assign to the grayscales when you edited them in Photoshop?

    rob day
    rob day
    Adobe Expert
    October 6, 2022

    Overprint Preview soft proofs the page as it should print to Document CMYK—the document’s assigned CMYK Profile. With it on, RGB Colors are previewed as they would convert into the assigned CMYK Profile, Grayscale images preview as they should print on the CMYK black plate, and Separation Preview shows the CMYK output values for an Export to flattened Document CMYK. The accuracy of the soft proof depends on the accuracy of your OS’s monitor profile.

     

    If the output is going to be Document CMYK, you don’t need Proof Colors for an accurate soft proof—Overprint/Separation Preview displays the correct document CMYK soft proof. You can use Proof Setup/ Proof Colors to soft proof the conversion to some other output device.

    S
    sd5e8aAuthor
    Inspiring
    October 6, 2022

    Thanks, @rob day. Here are some important facts:

     

    It seems that Overprint / Separations Preview gives me misleading results. The finished product in Acrobat doesn't look like that.

     

    This problem almost misled me to believe that there's something wrong with the images and that I have to fix them.

     

    And an important update: the problem that I'm having is not caused by my previous editing of the images. The problem is in the way that they are displayed in Indesign.

     

    Now I noticed that I've never edited some of them, but they too appear a bit brighter than they should be, with some of their imperfections revealed. Maybe its a psychological thing, but they also look a bit sharper than they should be. Its strange.

     

    So that's what I get on my screen in Overprint / Separations Preview with the Proof Setup set to Document CMYK or Working CMYK, which in my case is the same.

     

    As far as I understood you, turning on Overprint / Separations Preview is sufficient and I don't have to touch any other settings (Proof Color, Custom Proof Setup etc.), so that's what I get on my screen.

     

    But when I export to PDF - everything looks nice. Basically, what I see in Acrobat seems to be the same as if I turned on the Custom Proof Setup in Indesign with my CMYK profile set in it (at the same time, this also turns on Proof Color and Overprint Preview automatically).

     

    If I set Indesign that way, the images suddenly appear "fuller" and more "meaty", which looks nice and which resembles what I get in the PDF. Overprint Preview doesn't give me that.

     

    All the placed images are CMYK Black and they have the black Ink ICC profile embedded in them - the black ink from the CMYK profile required by the printer. The color management and pretty much everything is set to this CMYK profile. I see no conflicts.

     

    The embedded profiles are honored. There are no transparent objects on the page that I'm viewing, while the Transparency Blend Space is set to CMYK (for a moment I switched to RGB to see what will happen, but everything remained the same, so I clicked undo).

     

    I also tried replacing these CMYK black images with the sGray originals (the versions intended for screen use), but the effects that I explained before repeat themselves. In Output Preview - the images are a bit too bright and a bit too sharp, while in Custom Proof Setup - they appear more full and "meaty" (not as much as the CMYK Black versions, but that's normal).

     

    So what is happening here, I don't understand.

     

    Here are two screenshots (exported in one JPG image attached below). I don't use this image in my actual work (and it's not my photo). I picked it only for experimental purposes, because originally it was very dark. I wanted to recreate the effects of the editing that I mentioned before. I made this photo (the attached one below) to look like this by playing with the brightness / contrast, shadows / higlights and such settings.

     

    Thanks

    S
    sd5e8aAuthor
    Inspiring
    October 9, 2022

    But, if you are printing offset on an uncoated sheet you won’t get a rich black, so the "rich black" soft proof would be misleading. Are you printing offset on an uncoated sheet?

     

    I posted some coated vs. uncoated press sheet scans in your other thread:

    https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/why-these-two-pdfs-don-t-look-the-same/td-p/13247724


    But, if you are printing offset on an uncoated sheet you won’t get a rich black, so the "rich black" soft proof would be misleading.

     

    Thank you, @rob day.

     

    I will print on uncoated paper, so it seems that, indeed, the rich black setting is misleading.

     

    As I said before, everything looked strange until I switched to Display All Blacks Accurately. Suddenly, everything looked better - same as in the PDF. This seems to be what I was looking for. So I guess that this is the right solution for this particular case? I hope that this is accurate and reliable.

     

    Also, a couple of questions remained:

     

    - Should I also switch to Output All Blacks Accurately?

     

    I will print on uncoated paper, but the grayscale material will go to an offset press, while the color pages will go on a digital press (if this is important to mention).

     

    - Is it possible to set Photoshop to display this material in the same way as Indesign? I'm afraid that the answer will be no. At least that's my impression from all the answers you kindly posted here and in the other discussion. Thanks.

    Mike Witherell
    Mike Witherell
    Adobe Expert
    October 6, 2022

    Overprint Preview attempts to show on your monitor screen how your document would appear as printing inks on paper, where some inks overprint others (particularly black ink).

    Proof Colors is the switch you turn on or off to have the monitor pretend to be a more-limited CMYK color space. 

    But which CMYK color space do you want it to pretend to imitate? That is where you enter into the Proof Setup and choose the CMYK color space that you know to be the closest CMYK color model to the actual commercial printing company printing press (and your vendor would tell you which one they prefer). 

    These are all elements of color management toward the outcome of process color printing.

    Mike Witherell
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