Question about color proofing in PS

[Ruffles]

I wasn't sure whether to ask this in the PS forum or here. My question is about color management and what settings I should be useing. I have a PC running XP and PS 7.01. I've used a color profiler to calibrate my monitor and the profile is selected in the advanced display properties.

In PS under the view menu, there are options to Proof colors. How should this be set? I thought that since I used the spyder to produce a profile, my colors should already be accurate. If I select my spyder profile in the proof setting, I see no change in the colors. Should this be set to my printer profile? When I select "SP2200 Enhanced Matte 2880MK" for example, the colors change a bit and gradiations don't look as good. I'm confused as to why the printer profile would change the colors. I thought that was the whole point of the monitor profile...what I see on my monitor is what I should get out of the printer.

What about Windows RGB or Monitor RGB? Any help you can provide would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks!

[HulaMike]

Stay with your calibrated profile. The way "View" is intended to work is that when you also use a printer profile it can be selected under View>custom. This allows you to toggle Ctrl-Y (PC) between the calibrated "working" view to what the image might look like printed depending on which printer, ink and paper your profile is designed for.

[bjnicholls]

PS communicates with your display via the installed profile for you monitor. You don't need (or want to) specify your display profile at any stage in Photoshop color management.

There's a difference between what your display can show and what the printed image will look like. When you soft proof using the printer profile, you're trying to make the display match a specific printer, ink and paper combination. It can't do that perfectly since it's a transmissive device, not a reflective paper surface, but soft-proofing can help you anticipate what changes your image will undergo when put to paper. If you see shifts that are a problem, you can often use an adjustment layer to compensate somewhat (usually not perfectly since ink on paper can't match a display's performance).

When you get used to using soft proofing it's a critical step in making the best print possible with a given output device and medium. Profiling certainly helps you get similar results across various devices, but it can only compensate within limits. You can and should compensate using soft proofing - you can often do better than what straight color management will render with practice.