A soft proof simulates a printing or exposure result, taking into account both the printing or exposure technique and the medium on which your image is produced. For example, it simulates the white tone of a Fine Art paper or the maximum color gamut of a photo paper. This allows you to assess the effect of your photography in advance and make precise adjustments if desired. A calibrated monitor is, of course, crucial in this process.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP: Application & Soft Proof Process

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop
2. Open the file you want to simulate
3. Menu > View > Proof Setup > Custom
4. Select the profile under "Device to Simulate"
5. Do not select "Preserve RGB Numbers"
6. Render Intent: "Relative Colorimetric" with "Black Point Compensation"
7. Optionally, simulate paper color
8. Confirm the dialog with OK
9. Check your color profile in fullscreen mode on a gray background

The soft proof is now active for the opened image. The keyboard shortcut CTRL+Y toggles it on and off.

Additionally, it can be helpful to display the Gamut Warning (SHIFT+CTRL+Y). This temporarily highlights the tonal values outside the color gamut of the paper to be printed on. This allows optimizing larger color spaces to the color gamut of specific output devices.

ADOBE LIGHTROOM: Application & Soft Proof Process

1. Open Adobe Lightroom
2. Switch to the Develop module
3. Activate the soft proof option below the displayed photo by checking the box
4. In the right-side toolbar, you will now see the settings for the soft proof
5. Under "Profile," you can choose the profiles installed on your computer and activate the simulation. Note that Adobe Lightroom can only display RGB-based profiles; profiles in CMYK mode will not be shown.
6. Within the histogram at the top right, you can activate the gamut warning for the selected profile. Colors that cannot be optimally reproduced will now be marked in red by Lightroom. This allows you to make targeted adjustments in your editing settings.