I have never found soft proofing particularly useful. I am aware that because a double conversion, (monitor & printer), is required some accuracy is lost.
I have good profiles and a high quality calibrated monitor and find, particularly with matte & fine art papers, soft proofing and now the QU gamut check is pessimistic compared to the actual print. The gamut check appears to show significant loss of shadow detail and soft proofing shows too much loss of contrast.
I stick to a limited range of papers and know what to expect, top results with semi gloss paper and some loss of contrast and saturation with matte and fine art paper.
Terry
I agree with Terry completely.
Just wanted to add a point that I think is significant.
For may many many, years I had Epson Printers, using Epson paper primarily.
According to expectations, the matte paper was wishy washy. That means, the blacks never got really black, and the colors were wishy washy....
When my last Epson went to the big gamut in the sky, I took advantage of a perticularly great sale, and bought a Canon Pro 100.
I started buying Canon paper which included a cheap matte (MP101) and a good matte (PM 101 (Premium matte). I was going to dismiss the paper (came in a sampler pack) based on matte experience with Epson. Oh well free paper. I'll try it.
Holy Moley Batman. The prints jump off the page.
So I learned that the paper makes a great difference in gamut. The blacks are deep and rich again.
Fred