Thanks for persisting, Joanna.
I was thinking this too … but not sure how to go about that without just confusing matters even more, and diluting “votes” (of which there are disappointingly few !).
I’m not following the point of your example here, Joanna - - But please be clear that this issue has nothing to do with Soft Proofing as is required for printing … See here.
John
It is, at least for me. I use Whitewall for printing. And depending on the paper a.s.o. you can download the corresponding ICC file. Especially for photos that have a rather dark mood very helpful. This way, the print will also correspond to what is displayed on the monitor.
Please, can we stop discussing the need for Soft Proofing for printing … That’s a given - but it’s NOT the point of this post;
John
Ah! I’m sorry, I thought it was all intermingled.
In which case, what on earth is the point of soft proofing for display when there are so few differences for most displays? Certainly not critical enough surely?
OK. Time to cook lunch here.
Maybe it is “do-able”, but yet not implemented on Mac
And in terms of the display, you can choose whatever you want. Depending on which profile you have generated or imported.
So now I’m getting out of this too and I’m confused.
I will now write down once again how it looks to me and how I have understood it up to now, also with the help of sites such as Eizo etc…
When we talk about monitors, we also talk about the displayability of colours or colour spaces such as sRGB, AdobeRGB…
If I calibrate an sRGB monitor to sRGB, I work in sRGB and if I output a file, again in sRGB, I can assume that another user with a calibrated sRGB monitor will see the image in true colour.
So far, there is no mention of soft proofing.
If I want to print a photo (myself or from a service provider) I have to use softproof to take the printer and paper specifics into account. To do this, I have to either create an ICC profile with these specifics myself (Datacolor or Colormunki or…), find a hopefully existing profile of the printer/paper combination or have one provided by the service provider. When I activate Softproof I expect a selection of the corresponding profiles, select the profile and see on the screen a change in the image that I have to readjust for the print output in order to lighten dark areas that would otherwise have no drawing in the print.
Then I print the image on my own printer or export the image in the colour space expected by the service provider (usually sRGB for non-pofis).
I hope I have understood everything correctly up to this point, and I would like to address again that I can do this in LR and AP without endless discussions. Software is made for users and not for basic researchers.
I will now turn off the discussion here and leave the confusion of this topic to the professionals.
Enjoy the last rays of autumn sunshine and the rest of the weekend
Soft proofing is only effective in a color managed world.
So for a PL6 user in a correctly calibrated, profiled and color managed system - soft proofing for someone else device is at best a rough estimate. One can say that it can only be used by the deliverer to “guesstimate” a decent enough image is supplied based upon an intentional look.
For everything else it’s basically just a hit and miss. Being print, device or for large display or screen does not really matter.
The delivering side can at best assume the other side haven’t done anything of all factors that alters the colours etc.
For everything else a hard transformation to a well known small enough Color space which ensure a pretty repetitive and stable display of the original photo.
The photo should have a profile embedded to help those systems that do read them to know what it’s looking at.
For exports and distribution to known and color managed systems - a larger space with an included profile is the way to go. But if we want soft proofing, we do need information about intended target display and we need a profile for it.
That is my understanding - I can’t see the need.
Or do you? I have never soft proofed in over 15 years and have both printed myself and sent to labs, both by either providing my own printer profile or letting the lab provide theirs. I just printed the annual exhibition (40 prints, both colour and B&W) and, although I could have used the ColorSync Utility, I didn’t and nobody had any complaints about the prints not looking like their files on their screens.
But this would mean embedding the printer profile in the exported version of the image. Certainly something I have never found necessary.
My exported TIFFs for printing are in the ProPhoto RGB profile and I then choose a printer profile in the print dialog (not DxO’s). At no time do I ever embed a profile.
Don’t think so
Take a photo with dark details with little bit of structure
Activate soft proofing with a printer(paper profile
the structure will be less or disappearance
bring more lightness with selective tones till it looks okay
deactivate soft proofing and on the monitor it’s too light
now you have a photo seems to be too light on the monitor, but you don’t have a printer/paper profile assigned
Export this photo with sRGB for the provider
I have made this test one time you suggested me to ask the provider if they have changed the printer or paper and it worked with the new profile they send me. And I send them the photo in the first version without softproof and with soft proof all in sRGB and it worked.
So my question is if you don’t have used soft proofing in 15 years why all the software has soft proofing .
My head is exploding about all the discussion
edit from Develop module options in Photoshop Lightroom Classic
! Soft-proofing is the capability to preview in how onscreen photos appear when printed, and optimize them for a particular output device. Soft-proofing in the Lightroom Classic lets you evaluate how images appear when printed, and adjust them so that you can reduce surprising tone and color shifts.!
Mine is too and my eyes are totally glazed over! 
BUT… I am thankful that there are several very knowledgeable and experienced users here that are willing to put lots of time and energy into solving problems and making PL a better product. I also wonder what happens to their head & eyes as they go through this very difficult process!
A big thanks to you folks,
Rod
PS I Voted.
I suppose that >90% of these folks haven’t even heard about DxO PhotoLab…
and the most of them take the photos with Smartphones, if using a camera not in Raw and don’t use calibrated monitors…I think 
correct !
If I want to print a photo (myself or from a service provider) I have to use softproof to take the printer and paper specifics into account. To do this, I have to either create an ICC profile with these specifics myself (Datacolor or Colormunki or…), find a hopefully existing profile of the printer/paper combination or have one provided by the service provider. When I activate Softproof I expect a selection of the corresponding profiles, select the profile and see on the screen a change in the image that I have to readjust for the print output in order to lighten dark areas that would otherwise have no drawing in the print.
correct – while some ignore & still be happy
[ I’ve set up my screen accordingly (colour, brightness, contrast) & calibrated and it’s very close to the softproof for my ‘best’ paper. ]
Softproof is only a simulation on screen, what the output will look like.
… select the profile and see on the screen a change in the image that I have to readjust for the print output in order to lighten dark areas that would otherwise have no drawing in the print.
… now you have a photo seems to be too light on the monitor, but you don’t have a printer/paper profile assigned
Export this photo with sRGB for the provider
correct !
One never applies a printer-paper profile to the file, but chooses that profile from the print dialog (printing yourself – otherwise the printing service).
I read it like “nobody dared to complain as the work was all on you and you’re considered a very knowledgeable person, knowing what she’s doing (or not doing), so everybody who saw a difference took the blame on his non-calibrated screen or whatever”.
Now, when you print, I take it that you use not many different papers for your Canon large format printer? Basically, soft-proofing also happens by experience. Knowing that shadows can become too dark and also knowing how much you need to work against “shadows too dark” is just another way of soft-proofing.
But what I don’t get (yet): soft-proofing is rather hidden in the colour palette. I had to scroll down to find it and could not activate the paper simulation as it was deactivated by default (PL testversion 6.0.1, Mac M1Max). I think I’d need to setup a printer first, which won’t happen, as I don’t print out of PL (or CO for that matter).
Of all the buttons in PL which could do something I’m not aware of (when starting from scratch) soft-proofing is not the most dangerous. But I might be wrong.
the paper & ink simulation is promised as “coming soon” 
100% agree with all of Wolfgang’s statements!
I am glad that DXO has chosen to get into soft proofing, as it does give users another alternative to Adobe!
Spot-on ! … All good.
Yes - no argument - Except that, this post has absolutely nothing to do with printing.
It appears to me that you have missed the point - it must be due to my poor communication.
I’m really sorry if this is difficult to grasp - - but I have tried really hard to explain it … I accept responsibility for not having done it well enough - or with too much detail … or something ???
I’m really tempted to give up too, Guenterm 
… I assure you; I’m not doing this for fun !
I could easily be selfish, because I (and others I’m in-touch with on this issue) do understand when & why it occurs - and we have some simple work-arounds to mitigate it. However, I’m aiming for a solution that simply works - for all those users who will have no inkling of the implications.
John
On my Mac, SP on or off makes no difference. I exported 2 sRGB. files on with SP on, and one with SP off. Put them in PS as layers and set the blend mode to difference. There is no difference. So it seems that this additional algorithm is not deployed in my setup. Is it different for the Windows PL?
I have been doing a lot of testing and communicating with @John-M in a private thread and believe I have come up with a solution that will work for me as well as you.
I have found that using Colour Rendering set to Generic renderings with Neutral color, realistic tonality (gamma 2.2) and SP=Off provides me with the same result as PL5 except for more vibrant colours due to the wider working colour space, which is actually very pleasing to my eye.
I saw on one of you many posts that you also use Generic renderings with Neutral color, realistic tonality (gamma 2.2) so I think you may find this to work for you. The colours will be slightly different too PL5 but that I believe is due to the wife gamut working colour space and is an improvement to my eyes.
I used to use DxO Camera profile in my Colour Rendering settings which game me horrible colours in PL6. Going to Neutral colour fixed all my confusion.
As far as soft proofing goes, you don’t need to do it unless you really want to see a “simulation” of your output. If you do want to do soft proofing then DO NOT try and bring all the out of gamut colours back into gamut as that will ruin your photos as you have demonstrated with your flying lobsters! Simply tweak your photo if it does not look the best on the SP colour space.
I have tested this on both a P3 and sRGB monitor and I get consistent output which is very similar to the same setup in PL5. If you really want to you could always force Adobe RGB as you WCS to be even closer to how PL5 works, but I think you would be missing out on the advantages of editing in a wide gamut colour space before exporting (and converting) to a smaller gamut colour space.
Give it a go and let me know how it works for you 
OK - - I’ll try to explain this once again - keeping it as simple and succinct as possible.
I do appreciate all those who have engaged in this topic - If you genuinely want to understand what I’m trying to get-across, please read to the end & consider each point without jumping to your own conclusion.
Note: Starting assumption is that we have Working Color Space (WCS) = DxO Wide Gamut (WG)
This issue has absolutely NOTHING to do with printing (even tho it is related to Soft Proofing !!)
– Please just trust me on this, and read on.
When I was testing PLv6, I found, for a specific image, that the way it looked within PL on my sRGB monitor was not exactly how it looked, after exporting it via the sRGB ICC-Profile, when viewed on that very same sRGB monitor !! !!
– this was something I had not experienced with PLv5
– like most of you, I did not believe I needed to be Soft Proofing in this situation, so I had SP=OFF
After more tests, with more images, I found that this phenomenon occurred particularly for images with saturated colours … It still did not occur to me that this was related to SP - Why would it ?!
I pestered DxO about it and received the following explanation (from a very reliable source);
– In the Export to Disk process, PL asks for a target ICC-Profile (Default = sRGB)
– Now, when exporting to the digital file, PL applies an additional algorithm during that process.
– There are no settings for this algorithm … (I’m calling it DxO’s “secret-sauce refinement”).
– It’s purpose is to Protect Saturated Colors (PSC) in the conversion from WG, and the “strength” of the algorithm is specific to the target ICC-Profile
OK, so what ?!
– This algorithm is applied during the Export to Disk process (as described just above)
– This algorithm is applied when SP=ON
– However, this algorithm is NOT applied if SP=OFF … Aha !!! … Now do you get it ???
My reaction, to DxO, was to ask/say; Why do you not apply the algorithm when SP=OFF ?
– and the answer was; “Because, with SP=OFF, we don’t know the color space of your target file”
To which my next response was;
– For users intending to convert to a different color space (from the one used by their current monitor) - then they ought to understand the need to do Soft Proofing in that case … These are sophisticated PL users; let then deal with that themselves.
– For everyone else, who will have absolutely no inkling that SP is needed when simply working on Monitor-A and exporting an image for viewing on Monitor-A (or one “similar” to it) … there should be default behaviour by PLv6 that “just works” … for consistent WYSIWYG behaviour.
Recap;
– In order for WYS (within PL) to = WYG (when the result is viewed on the same or “similar” monitor) in all cases - including when SP=OFF (which is the setting that typical users will have) … DxO’s “secret-sauce refinement” algorithm needs to be applied in all cases; not only if SP=ON.
– However, currently, PLv6 is NOT applying this algorithm if SP=OFF because; an output ICC Profile is not provided in this case … BUT, I contend, it’s not unreasonable, in this case, to assume that the current monitor is the target.
See here for the (refined by “crowd-sourcing”) solution. In summary;
Re-instate setting in Preferences to specify the ICC Profile of the monitor used by PhotoLab
– OR, have PL deduce this itself … which, I am advised, is technically do-able.
If SP=ON then no change to current PLv6 behaviour is required - because, the algorithm is applied.
If SP=OFF then it’s reasonable to assume that the user simply expects the WYSIWYG-behaviour that we’ve always enjoyed pre-PLv6
– So, in this case, apply DxO’s “secret-sauce refinement” algorithm for the current monitor.
– Therefore, regardless of whether SP=ON or OFF … we will always enjoy WYSIWYG-behaviour.
This will be my last attempt at an explanation … I truly don’t wish to sound arrogant, or annoyed; I’m just doing my best … but, henceforth, I will respond only to questions related to the above …
Ask away !
John
