Soft proof of a photo edited in Lightroom Classic with a CMYK profile using Photoshop

Thanks to all of you.

That was exactly the instructions I was looking for. I opened the RAW file in CameraRaw and edited it based on my previous edits from Lightroom. I just adjusted the shadows and blacks a bit.

I know that I am far away from really fully understanding color management but it's a start and I will try sending this picture to printing. Let's see how it will turn out.

I am most worried about the general brightness. I am using a Macbook Pro 14 (M2 Pro) as well as an Asus ProArt PA278QV which I set to sRGB mode. I hope that the fixed brightness in this mode on the Asus corresponds to the printing result. The Macbook with the "Photography (P3-D65)" shows very similar colors but with a bit more brightness.

Do you have any experience with this?

I know I could go much deeper into screen calibration but I want to give it a try with this setup.

Since I am completely new to Photoshop, here is my question:

I am able to use the profie in Photoshop and see the changes it does to the photo (e.g. less contrast). But how do I proceed now? How can I edit the photo in Photoshop so it looks like my intended "unproofed" edit in Lightroom. And then how do I transfer these edits back to Lightroom to get my final picture that I can send out?

By @esrauscht

There is a way, but it is unfortunately rather complex, and probably not easy for a beginner.

The root of the problem is that Adobe Lightroom Classic does not support CMYK profiles. However, Adobe Camera Raw does. So, if your file is in a format that Adobe Camera Raw can open, you could soft-proof in CMYK using that. The specific reason to use Camera Raw is that it can send edits back to Lightroom Classic to apply them to the original file, because Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw use a common metadata format for edits. So you can edit while soft-proofing CMYK, and send the edits back to Lightroom Classic.

But if you are a beginner, and especially if you have not studied the basics of color management/profiles and how they work in different Adobe applications, most of the steps below may be a challenge to understand. But this is how I would do it. Important: These steps assume it is a camera raw or DNG file. If it’s in another format such as TIFF or JPEG, let us know because additional steps would be needed.

1. In the Library module in Lightroom Classic, choose Metadata > Save Metadata to File. This saves the photo’s current edit settings in XMP format so that other XMP-compatible applications can read them.

2. Choose Photo > Show in Finder. Lightroom Classic pops open the Mac Finder desktop and shows you the image selected in its folder on the desktop.

3. In the Finder, drag the image and drop it on the Adobe Photoshop application icon. If it’s in a format that Camera Raw is set to open, it opens in the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.

4. Click the underlined settings at the bottom of the Camera Raw window.

5. In the Camera Raw Preferences dialog box that opens, in the Workflow panel select the profile in the Space menu, set any other Color Space options as needed, and click OK. Camera Raw is now soft-proofing through the profile, and the histogram changes to a soft-proofing histogram, with a gamut warning button that looks like a printer because the proofing color space is CMYK. If the button is selected, all clipped colors are relative to that profile, such as the red areas in the picture below.

6. Make any adjustments needed.

7. When you finish, click the More Settings menu on the right, the one with the ellipsis (…), and choose Export Settings to XMP. This updates the edit metadata sent from Lightroom Classic.

8. Click Done, and you can now exit Photoshop if you want.

9. Switch back to Lightroom Classic, and with the same photo selected, choose Metadata > Read Metadata from File. Lightroom Classic picks up the edits modified by Camera Raw, which should now be applied to the image.

Below is what Camera Raw looks like when it is set up for your profile. You can see the differences in the histogram, compared to when using a RGB color space.

Open the RGB file in Photoshop (don't convert). Then go to View > Proof Setup > Custom and navigate to the CMYK profile. Once this is set, toggle with ctrl+Y to compare (ctrl+Y is the master shortcut for soft proof).

Here's the thing: If you see some saturated colors mute, it's because they are out of gamut. There's nothing you can do about that. A CMYK profile is a representation of an actual print process - a certain set of inks, on certain paper stock, on an offset press calibrated to a certain standard.

So if colors mute, it's because they can't be reproduced in that particular print process. What you can do, is compensate. The problem with out of gamut (clipped) color is that texture and detail tends to get wiped out, giving a dead and flat appearance that is quite displeasing. So you can try to remap. It's not usually the lack of saturation in itself that is problematic. The eye will usually accept that. It's the loss of texture and "air".

This isn't easy. CMYK is not for beginners.

Or you can just leave the file as is, and accept whatever clipping you get. It may not be a big problem.

One more thing. Offset print usually has a very high black point - blacks that are charcoal gray-ish rather than deep black. You need to be prepared for this! You can see in the proof dialog that there are checkboxes to simulate black ink and paper color. These can help - but they are very crude and inaccurate approximations.

A more advanced approach is to calibrate your display to match these printing conditions. That way, what you see is what you get. This means matching monitor white to be a visual match to paper color, and monitor black to be a visual match to maximum ink density.

If that last paragraph went over your head just ignore it - but know this is possible for critical work.