Who is correct? Grok Ai vs Martin Evening's LR 5 book re: LR compensates the shadow point for print

[Hmmokthen]

Hi,

In Martin Evening's "photoshop lightroom 5 book" pg 219 it goes "LR and PS are able to automatically compensate the shadow point every time you send a file to the desktop printer or you convert an image to cmyk (im assuming it wont do this if you send a RGB photo to a lab printer?). LR's color management system always ensures that the blackest blacks you set in the basic panel faithfully print as black and preserve all the shadow detail". Now this book is from 2013 so I don't know if it applies to the current LR classic of today. 

I asked Grok Ai and it said LR doesnt do this -- so my question is does what martin said still apply to LR today? thanks

[Ian Lyons · Accepted solution]

CMYK support was removed from Lightroom 2015.6 / 6.6

[Hmmokthen]

thanks for the info. Do you know whether LR and PS are able to automatically compensate the shadow point every time you send a file to the desktop printer?

[Conrad_C]

There is a message in Lightroom Classic that shows that black point compensation is applied when print colors are managed by Lightroom Classic (when a printer profile is selected). This is shown in a post in this forum with a screen shot of the message in the Print module:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/black-point-compensation-in-print-modul...

If colors are printer-managed, then it's up to what the settings are in the printer driver software options.

In Photoshop, in the Print dialog box there is a Black Point Compensation option in the Color Management section, so you can enable or disable it. I think it’s enabled by default. As in Lightroom Classic, the Black Point Compensation option is unavailable if you chose Printer Manages Colors.

Also, this can depend on the Rendering Intent you choose. If you choose Absolute Colorimetric in Photoshop, Black Point Compensation is not available, because that’s part of the point of using Absolute Colorimetric.

So in short, whether or not Black Point Compensation happens or is even available depends on whether you have the application or the printer driver manage the color conversion, and which rendering intent you chose.

[Hmmokthen]

very helpful, thanks. Here is more from the book...."some PS books and tutorials instruct you to set the shadow point to a specific black value that is lighter than a zero black, but this advice is only useful if you are working towards a specific, known print output. Even then this should not be necessary, since LR and PS are able to automatically compensate the shadow point every time you send a file to the desktop printer" — from what you have said, PS and LR in some circumstances can still compensate black point, what martin says, it should NOT be necessary  to set the shadow point to a specific black value that is lighter than a zero black: IS this still true? BTW Im not sure in LR you could ever set black point to a specific value, you could only boost or decrease its value?

[Ian Lyons]

> IS this still true?

Yes for inkjets from vendors such as Epson, Canon, HP, etc. It may or may not be true for some CMYK production printers. However, since LrC does not suppport CMYK, then point is moot.

[Hmmokthen]

ok. But in the circumstances where Black Point Compensation does not happen or is not available, LR doesn't have the ability (even in 2013 when the book was written i think) to set a specific black value; so if you are working towards a specific, known print output, you would need to take the image to PS and set the shadow point to a specific black value that is lighter than a zero black, correct?

[Ian Lyons]

Black Point Compsenation is hardwired into the LrC print output (i.e. BPC is automatically applied). I've attached the screenshot from the thread that @Conrad_C provided a link to above.

If Printer Colour Management is chosen by the user, then the print driver automatically makes the adjustment.

[Hmmokthen]

I dont do much printing atm, so please forgive my lack of understanding — I have 2 choices in color management when printing to my home printer: #1 Custom profile >> Tells the printer how the colours are to come out and "Black Point Compensation will be used for this print" i.e. the system will ensure that there is details in my shadows. --is that correct?

#2 "Managed by Printer" -- a) it doesnt mention anything about black point compensation, but I assume it is still doing it? b) "remember to enable color management in the printer driver dialog box" --where is this, cant find it anywhere?

thanks

[Ian Lyons]

Printer Color Management is a generic term used to indicate that the colour management setup is handled within the printer driver. See pages 490-493 of Martin's book for examples of Mac and Windows setup.

Note that driver appearance from different printer vendors will vary. Likewise, more recent drivers may vary from those in the book. That being said Epson drivers today remain very similar to those in the book.

[Conrad_C]

#2 "Managed by Printer" -- a) it doesnt mention anything about black point compensation, but I assume it is still doing it?

By @Hmmokthen

Printer drivers tend to be a “black box” where advanced features such as black point compensation might be done automatically but not controllable and without options exposed to the user.

For desktop inkjet printers, I believe black point compensation is based on information stored in the media type or profile. For example, I use Epson photo inkjet printers, so if I have the printer manage the color, I think black point compensation will depend on whether I selected a media type of Plain Paper, Epson Enhanced Matte Paper, Epson Premium Luster Photo Paper, etc. in the Epson-specific printing options. The printer driver includes density and white point info for each of those papers, so it can adjust black point compensation for each of them, as long as I chose a media type that matches the paper I put in the printer.

b) "remember to enable color management in the printer driver dialog box" --where is this, cant find it anywhere?

By @Hmmokthen

The example below is for Epson printers, where you choose the color management system in the Color Mode menu. On a Mac, that’s in the Print dialog box, Printer Options category, Printer Settings dialog box.

I don’t know how the options are arranged by Canon in their inkjet printer driver software, but hopefully this will point you in the right direction.

On macOS, Lightroom Classic and the Epson printer driver are properly coordinated so that if you choose a profile in the Lightroom Classic Print module, causing Lightroom Classic to manage the color conversion, when you go into the Color Mode menu, Off (No Color Management) is already set and can’t be enabled, as on the left in the picture below. On your Canon, you might have to manually disable color management, but again I’m sorry that I don’t know where that is or how it works in the Canon printer driver.

If you choose Managed by Printer in the Lightroom Classic print module, color handling is handed to the printer driver. On an Epson, as shown on the right in the picture below, this defaults to setting the Color Mode menu to Epson Standard (sRGB), which is often appropriate.

[Hmmokthen]

I dont seem to have a color or color management dialog box

[Ian Lyons]

Your driver is set for plain paper printing (i.e. General everyday printing). Try setting the driver to 'Photo Printing with white borders'. 

[Conrad_C]

I dont seem to have a color or color management dialog box

By @Hmmokthen

The screen shot helps a lot. It reminds me of something that we forgot to mention.

When it comes to this subject, there are two general kinds of printers:

• Professional photo printers 
• Home/office printers 

Everything we have talked about so far, and what Martin Evening talked about, is about professional photo printers. They tend to support precise control over how the color is converted, including an option for disabling color management.

Your screen shot shows you are using an HP Deskjet 2700 series all-in-one. All-in-one printers are firmly in the category of home/office printer. These are simplified low-cost printers optimized for basic home/office tasks like scanning, copying, and printing documents, scrapbook pages, snapshots, things like that. They are also optimized for plain paper, although some can do an OK job on supported photo paper. Compared to pro photo printers, home/office printers tend to have fewer inks, a narrow range of supported papers, and…a lot less control over color. This is true across brands: Epson, Canon, HP and others have a pro product line and a low-cost home/office line that includes all-in-ones. For HP, you will probably find color management controls in the printer driver software for their DesignJet line, but probably not in their basic DeskJet line.

If you can’t find an option to disable color management in that printer driver software, and if HP says there isn’t one, then you can’t use application-managed color on that printer, your only option is printer-managed color.

Under printer-managed color, you have to use the ink and paper support that’s built into the printer driver software itself. The black point compensation you are looking for will be automatic and controlled by hidden settings inside the media presets it provides. If you select plain paper, it will do a rough black point compensation for that. If you select a photo paper, it will do a different black point compensation for that. If you use the exact photo paper HP lists in their printer driver, black point compensation should be good enough because HP knows about the exact Dmax and color of their own papers. If you use paper that isn’t listed in the printer driver, black point compensation and other color rendition can’t be guaranteed to be good because the printer driver won’t have built-in settings for that specific paper.

All of those limitations are gone with pro photo printers because they let you customize the profiles and color management settings; you can use a profile custom-generated for a specific paper with appropriate black point compensation. But this HP DeskJet 2700 series does not appear to be a pro photo printer, so that’s probably not possible here.

[Hmmokthen]

thanks for the info. For MACs How did you get to that printer screen (is it "page setup" from LR print module) vs how do you get the print screen I provided? cheers

[Conrad_C]

thanks for the info. For MACs How did you get to that printer screen (is it "page setup" from LR print module) vs how do you get the print screen I provided? cheers

By @Hmmokthen

My picture isn’t Page Setup, at the top you can see that it’s the Print dialog box. In the current version of macOS, if you expand the Print dialog box you can open Printer Options and it’s in there. From Lightroom Classic it would be the Printer… button.

The Mac screen shot you just posted has a design that is from a much older version of macOS from many years ago, so it isn’t laid out the same way as it is in the last few major versions.

[Hmmokthen]

makes sense, thanks. Btw I find "Page Setup" button confusing as it comes up "Printer Setup" and has the same available buttons as "Printer" button except paper size and orientation.

[Hmmokthen]

Hi, coming back to the "color controls" menu > 1) why is there no ICM option 2) Why would you select EPSON standard (sRGB) and not Adobe RGB? I thought Adobe RGB woudve given more colors.

[Conrad_C]

Hi, coming back to the "color controls" menu > 1) why is there no ICM option

By @Hmmokthen

If you are referring to the Mac printer driver, the reason there is no ICM option is because ICM is the name of system-wide color management under Windows, but not macOS. The system-wide color management on macOS and iOS is called Apple ColorSync, which existed before ICM. So, in the Epson printer driver, you find ICM in the Windows version and ColorSync in the Mac version.

If No Color Management is enabled, ICM/ColorSync is not available. But if you are using a simpler/lower-cost home/office printer where the printer driver does not offer a No Color Management option, then you can use ICM/ColorSync together with the Epson printer driver.

2) Why would you select EPSON standard (sRGB) and not Adobe RGB? I thought Adobe RGB woudve given more colors.

By @Hmmokthen

When using printer color management, sRGB is the safe choice that works with practically all printers from home/office printers all the way up to pro photo printers. If you know that you are using a printer that can properly convert color data sent to it in Adobe RGB to the printer ink set, then Adobe RGB is also a viable option if your original document contains colors beyond sRGB.

If you’re not sure, do a test. If the print looks great as sRGB and even better as Adobe RGB, then Adobe RGB is the better choice. If print colors look worse using Adobe RGB then the printer driver is probably designed to assume that print jobs are coming in as sRGB color only. Again, that sRGB limitation is more common with low-cost home/office printers. Pro photo printers are more likely to properly handle a wider color gamut such as Adobe RGB.