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Hello Community. I use Lightroom Classic as my main photo editor and I wish to use it for soft proofing and printing as well. Unfortunately I'm experiencing an issue when trying to soft proof in the develop module. In soft proof mode, when I choose a paper profile and then when I select the "Simulator Paper & Ink" option, it has no effect what so ever on the image in the proof preview. When I toggle "Simulate Paper & Ink" on and off, I see that the proof matte around the image changes according to the selected paper profile just as expected, but no change happens to the image itself.
I have tried everything to solve this issue: selecting different paper profiles, reinstalling Lightroom a couple of times, reverting back to older versions of Lightroom from my current version 14.2, resetting Lightroom preferences several times and also reinstalling my graphics driver in Windows 11. I also tried disabling GPU acceleration in the Lightroom preferences, as well as disabling monitor and destination gamut warnings. Yesterday I chatted with Adobe support to see if they might have a solution but nothing came of it. I'm simply running out of ideas as to how to solve this issue which is why I am now posting this message to you guys in the community. Hope that someone might have an idea about what is going on.
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If the image doesn't change, it means that the colors in the image are inside the gamut of the printer profile - it's a good thing.
So, you should get a print very close to what you see on screen.
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Thank you for your response, Per. Technically you are absolutely right. It just doesn't seem possible to me, that all my images should be inside the gamut of the printer profile no matter what kind of paper I choose to simulate during soft proofing. I think you should always be able to see at least a tiny change in the image when toggling "Simulate Paper & Ink" on and off - a small change in brightness or something. But I don't... not at all.
I also tried exporting the same image to Photoshop to test how the simulation of paper during soft proofing would behave, and in Photoshop, it works as expected. When selecting a profile for printer and paper under "Customize Proof Condition", and toggling on and off the option to simulate the paper, the image changes instantly to reflect the nature of the selected paper. That is what I wish would happen in Lightroom as well.
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I'm seeing about the same color change when soft proofing in Photoshop as I do in LrC.
Are you using the same rendering intent (relative or perceptual) in both?
If you are, try resetting the LrC preferences. The easiest way is method 3 described on this page:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/reset-preferences.html
This will also set all options in the preferences dialog to default.
To make it easier to restore your settings, you may want to take screenshots of all the tabs in the preferences dialog before resetting.
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Toggling "Simulate paper & ink" is separate and not related to color spaces. Imagine you are printing on some fine art paper or canvas. Fine art papers and canvas are often not completely white, but slightly yellow. That means that pure white pixels will also look slightly yellow, because you'll see the blank paper without any ink on it. That is what "simulate paper & ink" tries to show you. So try a fine art paper profile like that, to check if toggling this option really doesn't do anything.
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Thank you for the input, Johan, and you are absolutely right - which is also why I expect to see at least a small change to the image when toggling on and off "Simulate Paper & Ink". I probably have somewhere around 40-50 ICC paper profiles available in LrC from Canon, Canson and Hahnemühle, and no matter which one I choose, the image itself doesn't change. Even choosing a paper profile like the Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic, with its quite extreme characteristics, nothing happens to the image when simulating the paper. The only thing that changes is the proof matte area around the image, and it does so quite considerably when choosing such a paper, as one would expect, which proves your point.
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I just checked it on my MacBook Pro running MacOS 15.3.2. and Lightroom Classic 14.2 and I clearly see the image change when I toggle the simulation. I often suggest to delete the preferences, not reset them with the key combo. Deleting them is more thorough and sometimes makes the difference.
BTW; make sure you do your test with an image that contains (almost) white areas, and only look at those areas. A dark area will be completely covered by ink, so in dark areas you may not see much difference, if at all.
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As far as I know, resetting and manually deleting the preferences file do the same thing – to delete the current preferences file, which forces LrC to create a new one on the next launch. Method 3 in the link I posted above is by far the simplest, click the Reset all preferences and relaunch button in Preferences > General, which will appear when pressing the Alt key (Option key on a Mac).
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AFAIK, resetting the preferences clears the contents of the file (or at least most of it), but keeps using the same file. In most cases that is effectively the same as deleting the file, but I have seen a few instances where resetting did not solve the problem, but manually deleting the file did solve it. It won't hurt to try.
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Sounds like toggling the simulation of paper and ink has the exact effect in your LrC, Johan, as one would expect. I wish my LrC would behave the same.
Regarding LrC preferences, they have been reset twice by Adobe support representatives remotely controlling my computer, both before and after LrC was reinstalled. The first time by deleting the preferences file and the second time through Preferences > General. Unfortunately without solving the issue.
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You could try this: create a brand new catalog, import one image and see if soft proof and simulating paper works as it should. If it does, then your problem is the catalog itself.
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Great point, Johan. I did try opening up another small catalog I haven't used much, to see if it by any chance would work better in another catalog. But the problem was unfortunately the same. It is worth a try, though, to see if creating a new catalog from scratch makes any difference - even though I don't have much faith that it will. I will post the result here.
It would be nice to at least get an indication of what could be causing this problem.
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Assuning that your GPU driver is up to date, the only other thing I can think of that can cause this is a defective or incompatible monitor profile. LrC is picky about the monitor profile, and can act up on a profile that other applications (like for instance Photoshop) have no problems with.
I have never seen reports of this issue being caused by this, but I guess soft proofing is one of the lesser used features in LrC.
As troubleshooting, and as a possible temporary fix, try setting the monitor profile to a known, good profile.
Use sRGB if your monitor is standard gamut, use Adobe RGB if it is wide gamut.
With LrC and Photoshop closed, press the Windows key + R, type colorcpl in the box and press Enter.
Add the sRGB or Adobe RGB profile and set it as default.
If this fixes the issue, you should ideally calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibrator.
This will also create and install a custom monitor profile that will be more accurate than sRGB/Adobe RGB.
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I'm running out of ideas here, but please go to Help > System info in LrC, click the Copy button and paste in a reply.
Also, maybe you could share a file that doesn't change when soft proofing, and the printer profile you use for proofing. ICC profiles cannot be attached, so you'll have to use Dropbox or some other file sharing service.
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The OP said he tried dozens of profiles, so sharing one of them does not seem to be useful. One thing that could be tried is purging the Camera Raw cache. That can be done in Preferences - Performance. The preview that the developer module shows is not a normal preview but data from that cache.
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I'm just curious to see what happens on my computer when using the exact same file and profile that the OP is using.
This also reduces the number of variables to a minimum.
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It obviously doesn't hurt, but if you read through the different messages, then you'll see he used different images and dozens of profiles, so I would be flabbergasted if a random image and a random profile of the lot would show this behavior on another computer. I am convinced this must be something else on his computer. The Camera Raw cache would be my next bet, but I agree I'm running out of ideas too.
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I pasted my system info down below as you requested, Per. Also, here is a link to a Dropbox folder where I have uploaded a random image that also doesn't change when soft proofing and one of the ICC profiles I have installed on my computer:
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So, Johan, tried out your suggestion and created a brand new catalog in LrC and imported a single image I haven't imported before, but I'm sad to report that the issue persists even in a new catalog. No change.
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I'm positive that I have been using the same rendering intent in both Photoshop and LrC, and I have also been switching between the two options to hopefully see any change in the simulated image in LrC, but without luck.
Thank you for the link as well. Have tried resetting the LrC preferences at least twice - or, I should say, Adobe supporters have done so remote controlling my computer. I believe it was done in accordance with methods 2 and 3, again with no effect on the issue. So you can probably see why I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of options.
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System info:
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Deleted
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Thank you for your suggestion, Per.
The thing is, there are two versions of a Nvidia graphics driver, the game version and the studio version. I have naturally chosen to install the studio version because, according to Nvidia:
"What is a Studio Driver?
If you are a content creator who prioritizes stability and quality for creative workflows including video editing, animation, photography, graphic design, and livestreaming, choose Studio Drivers.".
This makes the graphics driver I have installed on my computer the latest driver, also according to my Nvidia driver update application.
I would very surprised, and not least quite happy, if it makes any difference to the issue at hand if I switch to the game version instead - especially since the Adobe support representatives already tried this. But since I really want this soft proofing issue to get solved, I will, of course try to see what happens when I switch to the Nvidia game driver once more.