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Printing through Lightroom has advantages and disadvantages, and requires a different process than Photoshop. Here’s how to make your way through Lightroom for the best possible results.

By Tom Hauenstein

More and more photographers are finding Lightroom to be a valuable addition to their software suite. Because of that, many photographers have been asking questions about the Print Module found in Lightroom. It can do a lot of things faster and easier than printing through Photoshop, but it might not be the best solution for everyone.

There are some obvious advantages to printing through Lightroom when compared to printing through Photoshop. These include being able to easily print multiple images at once, print templates (such as one 8x10, four 5x7s, or 16 wallets), print contact sheets, and add strokes, watermarks, and photo borders. However, there are some major drawbacks that will affect everyone and some drawbacks that will affect only some.

No Color Settings, No Softproofing, No Canon Plug-In

I am not sure why, but Lightroom does not have a Color Settings function where you can determine your working space and your color management policies. The Color Settings exist in the rest of the Creative Suite, so I am not sure why they made Lightroom different.

Be that as it may, the working space in Lightroom is always ProPhoto. Therefore, when you switch to Lightroom, you will notice differences if you usually print images in Adobe 1998 or sRGB from Photoshop.

Since the ProPhoto color space is significantly larger than the gamut of your monitor and your printer and there is no option for softproofing (see below) it will be impossible for your prints to match the screen.  Without complete control of your color settings, printing through Lightroom does not seem to be that viable of an option, and I would recommend printing from Photoshop instead. But if you must print from Lightroom, keep on reading…

Another major drawback when printing from Lightroom is that there is no way to softproof (see softproofing article) for the ICC profile you plan on using for the printer/paper color management. Therefore, there is no way to know exactly what is going to come out of your printer until it is printed.

All papers have different color gamuts, which will affect how an image will ultimately appear on that paper. If you have no way to account for these differences, then you may end up wasting a lot of paper and ink printing hard proofs and adjusting for the differences.

Another thing that should be considered is that the effect a paper’s color gamut has on an image usually doesn’t affect the entire image. For example, it is common for a paper with a smaller color gamut to only affect a couple of areas of the image while the rest of the image prints perfectly. Since masked layers don’t exist in Lightroom, you will not be able to adjust those areas affected without changing the entire image. For more on softproofing in Photoshop, click here.

Another drawback only affects Canon imagePROGRAF printer owners. There is no print Plug-In for Lightroom like there is for Photoshop. Printing through the Plug-In is easier, faster, and yields better image quality.

The increased image quality has to do with the fact that the Plug-In will render the file at a 12-bit depth, whereas the standard driver will only render the image at 8 bit. For most, image quality is of utmost importance, so you should execute your prints through Photoshop and the Plug-In if you’re using a Canon printer.

Color Management

Now that you understand the drawbacks of printing through Lightroom and the potential problems it could cause, setting up color management is not that difficult. When you have the image or images that you would like to print selected, the first step is to select Print on the top right corner of Lightroom (see Figure 1).

You will notice that the drop-down options on the right side now help you set up the print. You should also notice a Page Setup Button on the bottom left of the screen. Hit Page Setup and create the correct page size that you would like to use in your printer. For this example, I’m printing to an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 (see Figure 2).

Also, make sure the correct media type is selected that corresponds with the ICC profile you plan to print with, and that you turn color management off in the printer driver. Since Lightroom will be color correcting the file according to the ICC profile you select, it is imperative that the printer driver’s color correction is disabled so that you do not double color correct the image. A double color corrected image will always print terribly.

Once the page setup is complete, select the correct ICC profile in Lightroom for the printer and paper you plan to print with by selecting the Print Job drop-down on the right hand side. This is where the Color Management section is.

If this is your first time printing with Lightroom you will notice that the only option for ICC profiles is Managed by Printer. Click on that and a fly-out will appear that gives you the Other Option (see Figure 3). Select Other, and a dialog box will appear with all of the ICC profiles you currently have saved in your color folder (see Figure 4).

Check the profiles you plan on using to print. They will then become options in the fly-out that appears when you click on Profile (see Figure 5). The only other option you have to check is rendering intent, and there are two choices: perceptual or relative colorimetric. For more information on rendering intents, click her for a full explanation and directions on how to properly use them. Also note that black point compensation is always applied in Lightroom.

Now color management in Lightroom is set up properly and you are ready to print!