View source for Digikam/Soft Proofing/en

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== Soft Proofing in digiKam ==
Transcribed from Dmitri Popov's blog, 21st May, 2012

''Soft proofing'' is a technique which allows you to see what the photo will look like when printed using a specific printer and photo media (paper, canvas, etc.) without actually printing the photo. Many professional photo processing applications support soft proofing, and '''digiKam''' is no exception.

To make this feature work in '''digiKam''', you need to specify color profiles for your display and the output device (e.g., printer). But before you do that, you need to obtain the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile ICC color profile] for your specific printer and print media. Say, you are using an Epson 9880 printer to print photos on the IJMF professional glossy photo paper from Diamond Jet. Grab the appropriate ICC profile from the company’s Resources page. Create the <tt>~/icc</tt> directory and move the obtained <tt>.icc</tt> file into it. In '''digiKam''', choose <menuchoice>Settings -> Configure digiKam</menuchoice>, switch to the <menuchoice>Color Management</menuchoice> section, and click on the <menuchoice>Profiles</menuchoice> tab. Select the desired color profile from the <menuchoice>Monitor Profile</menuchoice> drop-down list (the default sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile is a good choice in most cases). Next, in the <menuchoice>Color Profiles Repository</menuchoice> section, specify the path to the <tt>~/icc</tt> directory. Press <menuchoice>OK</menuchoice> to save the changes and close the dialog window, then restart '''digiKam'''.


[[Image:Digikam_softproofing.png|center|thumb|500px]]


To enable soft proofing, open the photo you want for editing and choose <menuchoice>View -> Soft Proofing Options</menuchoice>. Select the downloaded .icc color profile from the <menuchoice>Profile of the output device to simulate</menuchoice> drop-down list, then select the desired item from the <menuchoice>Rendering intent</menuchoice> drop-down list. This should generally be ''Relative Colorimetric'', but if your printer supports only a limited gamut you may want to try the ''Perceptual'' rendering intent instead. Enable then the <menuchoice>Highlight out-of-gamut colors</menuchoice> option and select the highlighting color you want. Finally, enable soft proofing by pressing the <menuchoice>Soft Proofing On</menuchoice> button, and you should see the photo exactly as it would appear in print.


[[Category:Graphics]]
[[Category:Photography]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]