Soft Proofing for Giclee Printing

Previewing images on your monitor before sending files to us for printing is an essential step in order to see what the final output is going to look like.

It is mandatory to calibrate your monitor. A hardware/software calibration solution needs to be used. Google "monitor calibration" and you will find different products. Macbeth makes an inexpensive one which works fairly well.

Once the monitor is calibrated, you will need to load the profiles to preview in Photoshop. The first step is to specify in Photoshop under the view menu, proof setup, custom. You need to choose the right profile. Because the profiles we use for our papers and canvas are not loaded by default, you need to e-mail us and we will send the specific files. In order to put the profiles in the system, Macintosh and Windows have two different locations.

For Windows the location is windows->system32->spool->drivers->color. Put the ICC profiles in the color folder. At times you may have to restart Photoshop to see the profile.

For Macintosh the location is System->Library->Colorsync->Profiles. Put the profiles in the Profiles folder and the system will recognize the new settings.

Under the menu specified above in Photoshop, select the profile and activate it by using command Y on the Mac or control Y on the PC.

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