Mpix printing colors help please

So I have some questions about printing through Mpix. I tried doing a search through this forum as well as some others and could not find a definite answer.

I have downloaded their ICC profile but am a little lost with other things when editing in photoshop.

Which rendering intent should be used for Mpix? It seems like a lot of people are saying perceptual.

Do I check any of the 3 following boxes?
Black point compensation
Simulate paper color
Simulate black ink

Thank you!

Mpix claims they use Perceptual in their process, so best to use that when soft proofing. But 90% of the time it won't make any difference. Only comes into play when you have vivid, highly saturated colors that are way out of gamut for the Mpix profile.

Black point compensation is an Adobe only thing. Usually makes no difference in the soft proof. Just leave it on.

The Simulate paper color is often called the "destroy my image" button because it makes your image look dull and flat on screen. In my experience, it does NOT match the final print. Leave it off. Ditto for the Simulate Black ink.

But after you get your first prints back from Mpix, judge for yourself. Cycle through the soft proof options and compare to the print. And do that for several prints, including ones that are out of gamut.

The main problem people have with matching screen to print is with brightness, not colors. Soft proofing only shows you color matching, not brightness. If your screen is too bright (and most are), prints will come back looking much darker than the screen image.

Also, make sure you select "do not adjust color" when ordering from Mpix. If you don't, they will adjust color automatically and all bets are off.

I use Mpix for small prints (wallets, 4x6) and have been very happy with the results.

Thank you very much for your help! Cleared a lot up for me .

Redcrown wrote in post #16050528
But 90% of the time it won't make any difference

Well, Relative colorimetric absolutely leaves all colors that fit in the destination devices gamut, alone…
Then again, if everything worked as it should in theory, using perceptual could make a rather dull print, because the entire gamut of the images color space would compressed to fit within the gamut of the destination device.
(That's why some more mumbo-jumbo is going on)

So: Perceptual is a pretty safe bet, but there are some cases to choose relative colorimetric.