I recently acquired some Epson Exhibition Paper - it's heavy and lovely. I am using the profiles supplied by Epson and developed by PixelGenius. I have tried all possible combinations of settings in soft proofing in Photoshop CS3 (Mac), but the prints are coming out a few stops lower in Gamma than the screen (calibrated) shows. In other words, the screen is brighter than the prints - the color is a good match but the tonal value is way off.
Does anyone have any experience here? I have sent messages to PixelGenius and Photoshopuser.com, no help yet.
I'm using an epson 3800 and a Mac. Softproofing works great with the same profile you're using. I really don't know what to tell you but it wouldn't hurt to know what printer and OS you're using.
When you say Gamma, do you just mean brightness or are you actually talking about the tonecurve where the midtones are too dark while the brights look normal, or vice versa. If it's just brightness, it depends on how bright your monitor is relative to your ambient room lighting. More often than not, regular monitors are set way too bright for print evalutation and soft proofing. Also make sure when you're soft proofing, you're not only simulating the paper color but also performing a blackpoint compensation.
You might want to do a test print with Bill Atkinson's test image and take a careful look at the gray ramps. Some printers aren't able to print the darkest or the brightest values and you'll need to add a levels adjustment layer to your image before printing. In the layers adjustment, you may need to compress the values. Go here to see how to evaluate your test print: http://www.outbackprint.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html
Interestingly, when I soft-proof Premium Luster, it matches very well, but with Exhibition, it get this mismatch. I am simulating paper white and black point compensation. Would someone please post their soft-proof settings from the dialog box? Thanks very much.
