Forgive my ignorance but why would I print from Lightroom? It doesn't have a softproof feature that I can find so I'd be printing blind hoping for something reasonable to appear.

I apologize in advance if this has been argued about already. Just point me to the appropriate thread. I just couldn't find it in a reasonable time with a search.

Fair point. If I am printin a large, I do not use Lightroom. Or should I say, I am nervous because of the slight uncertainty involved. In answer to your question: "why would I print in Lightroom?", I have to say I find it invaluable when I have a large number of small prints to run (such as after a wedding, for example). Knowing I can walk away from my printer and come back to a stack of good quality prints is worth a lot to me. The results are good - something reasonable always appears - but not always good enough if a lot of ink/paper are involved.

Don.

Thanks, Don. That makes sense. In essence you're using it for proofs or when good enough is good enough. I'll bet you're mostly printing on glossy/satin/luster papers where gamut size is close to what you see on the monitor. Is that true?

I find it difficult to understand how they could leave this feature out of a program that is supposed to be targeting photography. Why give us all the tools for image correction, balance etc. and a sexy new print dialog and then omit the feature that gives us a print preview?? It seems Adobe is just adding one more program for us to buy and keep updated. The lack of soft proofing means we still need to buy and maintain CSx too. One can't help but feel this was done on purpose.

Either that or they're driving people to export photos and use Qimage.

Seriously, its more likely something they're looking to address later and try to do it in a more holistic manner.

For example, I have a theory that a number of people print on glossy/satin/luster instead of matte because of what they see when they soft proof with a profile for a matte paper. The image looks terribly muddy. There's a significant challenge going from the muddy look to something that will look good as a print on matte paper.

If we could soft proof in LR in a way that allowed us to easily apply corrections with Develop module tools it would help a lot of people and sell a lot of copies of LR.

Yes, you are dead right. For me, the glossier the better and the print is fairly close to what I see on the monitor. Of course I have a fully calibrated system but nothing is perfect! I am about to get a large format printer and hope to do some canvas prints, so I guess I am in for a whole new experience. Up to now, I have had my large prints done by a lab, which can be quite good but slightly unpredictable. I know matt prints are very popular but to me they lack punch and there is always the issue of never finding an angle where reflections are not an issue. A personal thing.

Don.

Yes, its a matter of personal taste. The reflections from glossy drive me nuts. I'm also bothered by serif fonts. Go figure. We're all wired differently (thank goodness).

I just got an HP Z3100 24" and I'm printing satin again after swearing it off with my Epson. Not that Epson luster didn't look great but I got really tired of swapping black ink carts and metamerism.

I do like fine matte finishes like Hahnemhule Photo Rag, Moab Entrada, etc. though. The look really appeals to me. Holding them in my hand is a treat as well. I hate putting them behind glass at times because the wonder of the paper itself gets lost.

Soft-proofing: I did some more reading in other forums/websites and found that this has been requested since the betas. I'll be quiet now knowing that someone in Adobe has it on the to-do list.

Me too! LOL