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Soft proof

I am not all that sure of the value of soft proofing in image editing software. I tried it once before with the Blurb book printer profile and when turning it on and off the effect was mainly that of seriously deteriorating the photograph in that the colour, tonal range, contrast all collapsed into some kind of murky visual sludge.  The book turned out fine nonetheless.

So I wasn't too annoyed when I spent a couple of hours this evening unsuccessfully trying to get a Photobox printer profile installed before ordering several large prints.  I ended up mucking about with the pre-installed soft proofing profiles - which I found can split an image into the individual components which make up CMYK - and also CMY without the K (black).  As with other messing around with software effects the instant changes are curious and interesting but it turns out with proofing the changes cannot be saved, presumably as this is merely an aid to viewing and not a real alteration to a file.  I took some screenshots and made a strip of the various CMYK component proofs.