How to create an ICC profile for softproofing in Lightroom

I finally got this to work, so I thought I’d share. The trick is to print and measure the 21x16step Piezography chart, not the 256-step chart. I’m using i1Profiler with an i1Pro 2. I saved the measurements to a CGATS text file with CIELab data, then dragged that file onto QTR-Create-ICC-RGB, then dragged the resulting ICC file into /Library/ColorSync/Profiles.

It was easy to create a grayscale ICC print profile using the Piezography-ICC-Profiler droplet as shown in the Pro manual’s video. That ICC works great when used with Print-Tool, but has problems with softproofing. If you try to Simulate Ink and Paper in Lightroom or Photoshop (2025 versions) with this profile it gets extremely dark / black, as described in this post. The suggested fix in that thread is to use QTR-Create-ICC-RGB instead, which makes an RGB rather than gray profile. It kept failing with 256-step data, saying my L values were out of order, even after I corrected them with the PiezoPro spreadsheet. I finally found a post where someone said this works with a 21-step target and indeed it does – verified with 21-step and 21x16-step.

Now I can print with the gray ICC created by the PiezoPro droplet, and softproof with the RGB ICC created by the QTR droplet. I get a very good match with a calibrated monitor and D50 viewing station at similar brightness in a dim room.

The ICC that comes with the Piezography installation called “Piezography Gloss Neutral Softproof” is a pretty good match to what I’m seeing on my PiezoPro neutral prints on Canson Baryta Photographique II, using a quad I re-linearized with the Pro tools. But the hue is off slightly, so I wanted to try making my own softproof ICC.

Previously I have always printed flat (no ICC in Print-Tool, just using re-linearized quads). But I’m liking the flexibility the PiezoPro tools give me to apply a contrast curve tweak via a custom ICC at print time.