Working between 98% color gamut and real world prints and viewing

I don't know that I care to print it necessarily, I'm just curious. I've been playing with this image for 2 years off and on. Now that I have a 98% color gamut monitor, the blown out reds in the image are workable, and the image actually looks quite good to me aside from getting tired of looking at it and too much green.

Once I apply mpix's printer profile for proofing or look at it on a mere mortal monitor, the bridge looks a flat single tone blown out red. All the detail I saw on my monitor is now gone. Poof. Really, the bridge looks fantastic on my monitor, but as soon as I load that proofing profile, the image transforms like none other so far.

Like I said, this image isn't really important, it's just the challenge aspect. If I can make it look reasonable in post, then it should be able to print very similar.

On top of that, I've been chatting with a fellow that prints his own pictures. He tells me he prints full 16bit adobe rgb and his prints are amazing. Are there any pro printing services out there that might be able to handle a wide gamut image?

Describe what you are doing better. How do you "apply" the printer profile?
If you're softproofing: What rendering intent?
How well do you understand colormanagement?

On your friends comment: 16bpc AdobeRGB has the same gamut as 8bpc AdobeRGB
Any decent inkjet printer (R2880 or iP9500 or so) will surpass AdobeRGB in some colors (and have smaller gamut then sRGB in some others )

I am softproofing and I'm applying the printer profile in photoshop "proof colors".

I'm guessing when you say "rendering intent", your asking if I'm proofing for lcd screen, print, other display options. With that in mind, my goal with this image would be to make it right for printing. That answer should also cover the question of "how much I know about color management"; not a lot, but enough to understand some basics.

What I do know is when I view this image on my main monitor, most everything is very similar, except the bridge. Especially towards the left side where it looks like someone painted in between lines with a red marker, on my home monitor looks good; lighter in areas, showing depth and detail. But turn the printer profile on or look at this image on a cheap dell notebook and it becomes one solid shade of red, that is way darker.

This thread is probably a waste of time, as the reds are blown to begin with, but it doesn't make sense that I can't print what I see on the good monitor. It's like mpix's printer profiles are lacking a whole lot of red variety.

Their profile is for a printer / paper combination. At least I hope it is. Some printers have a lager color gamut than others. Some papers have a larger color gamut than others, so some printer / paper combinations have larger color gamuts than others.

If you are interested is seeing what it would look like on an inkjet printer, go to a paper manufacturer's website and download their profile for one of their papers on an Epson or Canon professional printer. Use this profile to soft proof in PS. Won't take long at all. Try both perceptual and relative rendering intent.

Maybe try Canson Infinty Baryta Photographique paper on an Epson 3880 or 4900 printer profile and see what you think.

http://www.canson-infinity.com/en/icc_ch​oice.asp

Have someone with a wide gamut inkjet printer print it. This guy really, really knows his stuff, when it comes to color and printing, I expect he'd do as good a job as anyone could.