Color Space, anyone?

[sincere]

What should i set it to? Wich one do you perfer? Someone told me to keep it SRGB because it displays the most colors.

My camera has SRGB but i noticed that when i exported a file from Lightroom and uploaded it somewhere, the colors came out differently because in lightroom it wasnt set to SRGB. I assume it should always be set like the camera is set.

I tried the other ones but it seems like SRGB was the way to go. Still, please school me if you feel i should go with something else.

 

[Alex_B]

i use Adobe RGB 1998 since it is a wider colour space. many screens cannot display all the colours though. so images look dull if displayed on screen without proper software. therefore for screen use (such as www or similar) I convert to sRGB (convert to, not just assign the sRGB colour space) in PS.

since printers have a different, and in some respect larger, colour space than sRGB, for printing I start with the original image in the larger colour space.

however, if you exclusively use desktop printers only, a pure sRGB workflow might be sufficient for you.

 

[sincere]

i use since it is a wider colour space. many screens cannot display all the colours though. so images look dull if displayed on screen without proper software. therefore for screen use (such as www or similar) I convert to sRGB (convert to, not just assign the sRGB colour space) in PS.

since printers have a different, and in some respect larger, colour space than sRGB, for printing I start with the original image in the larger colour space.

however, if you exclusively use desktop printers only, a pure sRGB workflow might be sufficient for you.

What do you mean by convert and not just assign to sRGB? Whats the difference? How do i do that? So sRGB for screen view and Adobe RGB 1998 for print? In all of this, i9 see a huge problem in editing because if for screen view, sRGB is the best, how do i edit a picture thats intended to go in print if it istn going to show the best results on the screen and i wont know what i really have in front of me?

 

[Alex_B]

What do you mean by convert and not just assign to sRGB? Whats the difference? How do i do that? So sRGB for screen view and Adobe RGB 1998 for print? In all of this, i9 see a huge problem in editing because if for screen view, sRGB is the best, how do i edit a picture thats intended to go in print if it istn going to show the best results on the screen and i wont know what i really have in front of me?

it works because photoshop can be told the profile of your screen, and then it mimics roughly what the Adobe 1998 would look like if you screen could actually display the true colours. Hence the Adobe 1998 image displayed on screen by photoshop or similar programmes does not look dull, as it would if it was displayed just with a webbrowser or some other software incapable of colour management. Hence you can edit it and see the changes even if the screen cannot truly display it. of course the better the screen, the more accurate your editing wil be.

if your whole process is calibrated and profiled, then what you see on the screen will look damn close to what you will see in print.

 

[sincere]

Ok, so how do i convert and not just assign? I would like to try this out. Danke.

 

[Garbz]

Believe me the only thing you will gain from using and working in the Adobe RGB colour space is a headache. Unless you go to a professional photo printing firm (not a local lab) you will gain no benefits from using the Adobe colour space since your screen can't display the extra colours, and your printer most likely can't print them.

sRGB is a standard. It covers the colour space your monitor can display and is still wider than the printer can product. It is used it most photo labs, even some professional ones, and can be read by any software.

On the other hand if you are working in any other colour space and you do not convert it to sRGB before you upload it to the internet or open it in a picture view not compatible with the colourspace then it'll look dull or outright wrong.

I gave up in the end and my screen and printers are calibrated to the sRGB space. Works just fine.

 

[Alex_B]

sRGB is a standard. It covers the colour space your monitor can display and is still wider than the printer can product. It is used it most photo labs, even some professional ones, and can be read by any software.

Colour space is not just one-dimensional, strictly speaking printer colour space is not smaller, but has a different shape compared with sRGB. This means some parts of sRGB are missing in some printer spaces, but there are parts of the printer space which are not covered by sRGB.

Also most half-decent screens today can display a bit more than just sRGB.

But this is just nit-picking, since as you said, on most printers you won't see a real difference. It also depends on the type images you take if you will see a difference on high-tech-printers.

 

[Alex_B]

Ok, so how do i convert and not just assign? I would like to try this out. Danke.

If you use photoshop, there you simply have the option to either convert to or assign a colour space. where exactly you find it depends on the version you are using I suppose.

 

[Garbz]

Yeah I was generalising a bit. Although My printer's colour space really is smaller than the sRGB space in every dimension according to canon's graphs, but hey it was a modest printer and I send my stuff to a local lab anyway, they want sRGB.
Actually I wonder if window's colour management defaults to sRGB the only way to take advantage of the larger space would be install a separate colour profile right? Just wondering if it works like that, I've always found windows' own colour management ... flaky.

Oh to have $5000 for one of those screens that can display all visible portions of the PhotoPro space

 

[Alex_B]

Oh to have $5000 for one of those screens that can display all visible portions of the PhotoPro space

I know I am crazy, but I just recently drained my bank account for something close to that range

You do not really need it if you are not in the pro printing business.

 

[AdamZx3]

I agree I would just stay in sRGB, it will save a lot of hassle. Most browsers cant view adobe rgb anyway, the upcoming firefox 3 and safari 3 will be able to display any embedded profile.

I always use adobe rgb for my editing space, for a lot of pictures theirs no visible difference, but on solid colors it can be huge, on a recent poster design my desktop printer could print a wider gamut of color than my monitor in srgb could put out (for that color at least), it was a bit warmer than the cingular orange. As mentioned a good monitor helps, but my eizo can only display 96% of adobe rgb anyway. I wish color management was more standardized with rgb, theres way to many variations....I sometimes crack a smile if I have to output to a cmyk

BTW you can get one of those fancy dancy Eizo CG221 $5000 wide gamut jobs for $2500:mrgreen: ..almost half off http://www.eizo.com/purchase/direct/monitors.asp re-certified and a only a 1yr warrenty though, still a great deal!

Heres a file that has a ton of green in it, composited it in photoshop from two different color spaces, if ur outputting to the web anyway your better off with a saturation or curves boost.