Color Spaces: LR2, CS4

[Pure]

I'm confused as hell. With my latest blackade with dark colors, I've realized something. How the heck do you setup LR2 and CS4 to work together well.

LR2 uses 2 color spaces, as far as I know, one to display in the library, and ProPhotoRBG (MelissaRBG <-garbz?) to actually edit in the develop panel.

However, I'm a bit confused.

Before editing in CS4, do you guys ALWAYS export from LR2, then edit the TIFFS?

I've discovered an option while right-clicking, that says "edit in CS4." Is it best to skip over this option and just export?



Here's how I believe my work flow currently works....but I'm probably wrong....

-RAWS
-Imported to LR2 [now ProPhotoRBG]
>>>>Won't I lose color data here? Should I keep it PPRBG? Can't WHCC take PPRBG files?
-Export to a folder [now TIFF, 16bit, SRBG]
-Edit in CS4
-Save/print

What should be settings in LR2 and CS4 be so that the photos are always displayed in the correct profiles.

I'm working with a calibrated screen.

 

[yogibear]

Hmm Great question! Im curious aswell. Never really thought about if I was losing color data between the two.

 

[Pure]

Anybody? Haha, I probably should have been thinking about this earlier!

 

[Big Mike]

LR uses Prophoto because it's a wide gamut, nothing wrong with that.
When you export from LR, that is a time where you can choose the color space you want. It's one of the export settings.

If you are going to be doing some serious editing in Photoshop, you might want to choose a wide gamut like AdobeRGB or ProphotoRGB...but as your final file for printing is likely to be sRGB, you might want to just go directly to that.

As for exporting to TIFF files for further editing in Photoshop, that's fine. My only concern is that unless you re-import them back into LR, the 'files' you see in LR won't be finished images. And you wouldn't be using the 'back end' of LR...Print, Web & Sideshow modules. You could re-import them but then you would have them in LR twice. Not that that is the worst thing ever, but probably not necessary.

However, if you use the 'Edit in...' feature, the image automatically comes back into LR when you save it in Photoshop. You can choose to replace the image in LR or just stack the edited version over the original.

I'm not sure which method is best, I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

 

[Pure]

Thanks, but I'm still a bit confused. LR2 has a preference that says "Edit in CS4" and then it says, Color profile, etc. I set it as PPRBG to match LR2, but should I set it to SRBG to allow for a more common space?

 

[Big Mike]

If you are just taking the image into CS4, via the 'Edit In...' command, then I don't think it matters because Photoshop can read/use any of those color spaces.

Really, the only big potential problem (that I see) is when you have a file that is in AdobeRGB or PhotoProRGB etc. and you do something with it, (send it for printing etc) that is expecting sRGB...because if it hasn't been converted properly the color might be messed up.

Colors are just numbers to a computer or digital file....and a certain number in one color space might not be the same number in another, so that's where you might have problems.

That's my understanding at least.

 

[Pure]

If you are just taking the image into CS4, via the 'Edit In...' command, then I don't think it matters because Photoshop can read/use any of those color spaces.

Really, the only big potential problem (that I see) is when you have a file that is in AdobeRGB or PhotoProRGB etc. and you do something with it, (send it for printing etc) that is expecting sRGB...because if it hasn't been converted properly the color might be messed up.

Colors are just numbers to a computer or digital file....and a certain number in one color space might not be the same number in another, so that's where you might have problems.

That's my understanding at least.

I use WHCC for prints, and their website states that take all spaces. I have a test print coming today to see if they do in fact take PPRBG, so I'll let you know.

Will PPRBG display any differently than SRBG on the web?

 

[musicaleCA]

Will PPRBG display any differently than SRBG on the web?

Why do you put the blue before the green? Just curious.

Yes. Unless the browser is a colour managed program (which it likely isn't; FF can have colour management enabled via some buried settings), then ProPhoto RGB will look very fugly displayed in the sRGB colour space. All of the colours will be less vibrant and darker.

 

[Pure]

Will PPRBG display any differently than SRBG on the web?

Why do you put the blue before the green? Just curious.

Yes. Unless the browser is a colour managed program (which it likely isn't; FF can have colour management enabled via some buried settings), then ProPhoto RGB will look very fugly displayed in the sRGB colour space. All of the colours will be less vibrant and darker.

As for the RBG, I have no idea, habit, even though I know that it should be RGB.



As for WHCC, that do NOT take ProPhotoRGB, which is unfortunate.

I just got back prints in both SRGB and PPRGB, and both are darker, and a bit more contrasty than what is displayed on my screen, which is annoying. I don't know what is going on!

 

[Big Mike]

Another part of the equation is printer profiles. You should be able to get one from WHCC.

You use the profile to 'soft proof' you image before sending it...reason being is that printer profiles don't always match color spaces (probably never do, but most are close enough).

Google it for more info.

 

[Garbz]

Ok I think there's some confusion about how the edit in process and the colour spaces work.

Start with "Edit in CS"
Lightroom uses the Adobe CameraRAW engine. The same one as Photoshop. If you update Lightroom but not CameraRAW then you end up with an error. You'll also notice that Lightroom and CameraRAW have the same version release cycle.
Anyway when you click "Edit in CS" what it actually does is open it in CameraRAW with all the settings from Lghtroom, and then imports it into Photoshop. There is no loss in colour here, photoshop is opening the original RAW. When you save in Photoshop Lightroom will import the saved file. This is now different. It is no longer a RAW. It is an image file like any other with an embedded colour space.

Colour spaces:
These define the chroma point of the Red Green Blue primaries. I.e. just how red is RGB(255,0,0). The larger the colour space the more possible ranges of colours you can edit. However this is just the background to a very large problem. Colour spaces determine a way to get each pixel back to a standard space, a second colour space is then used to display the image.
In the case of Photoshop it will use the "working space" of the image to read the file, and the "monitor" profile to output it. Lightroom does the same for normal images. But for RAWs it will use MelissaRGB (a linearised ProPhotoRGB space) for the "working space" which handles RAW files much nicer in terms of calculations.

A non colour managed program will assume everything is sRGB input and output and do not conversions. It will take the bit value of the image and pass it to the video card. An input colour managed (don't think this is the correct term) application like Windows Picture and Fax Viewer will read the "working space" out of the file and convert to sRGB always.


Now this leads to a couple problems:
- Wide colour spaces need more data. If you're editing anything larger than sRGB in 8bits then you're asking for trouble. 8bits just covers the possible combinations in sRGB. Increase the colour space and you end up with posterisation, non smooth gradients, sudden jumps in colour etc.
- There's a finite number of colours that are recorded. Lets assume that you don't photograph LEDs or Lasers or any other single point source type light sources that would actually fall on the very edge of the CIE1931 diagram (i.e. a pure colour). Most images would fall neatly into sRGB, a few fall outside fit just fine into AdobeRGB. A few exceptions are some of those nuclear coloured sunsets. They benefit from the widest colour space but only if you're in support of the next problem:
- How do you display the colours. Nearly ever very web browser will assume an image is sRGB. That's the end. If you don't print your photos then turn off colour management right now. Set everything to sRGB and don't bother your head with it again because you gain nothing. Now lets assume you print, if you print at a nice pro lab who knows their stuff and actually supports colour management (i.e. will tell you they want AdobeRGB files) then your limitation is the paper. Matte paper will fit nicely into sRGB except for some of the greens which fit into AdobeRGB.

Overall I see no real point in using ProPhotoRGB. You can't view it, you can't print it, and it actually contains literally imaginary colours. So if you get a professional print done and you have a real need for it then and only then do you actually end up with a decent result and then AdobeRGB will probably still cover all of your needs.


Finally on the subject of your contrasty images which look the same. What you need to do is softproof. You need to get the profile of your printer and enable softproofing in photoshop. What this does is convert your working profile to the printing profile, and then back to the monitor profile and if you check gamut warning it will show you exactly which pixels in your original image can't be displayed in the colour profile of your printer.

So here's what I suggest:
Read over http://homepage.mac.com/ilyons/pdf/ps6_sp.pdf.
Open your image you want to print in AdobeRGB, soft proof to sRGB and turn on the gamut warning. If nothing highlights then there is no point in using AdobeRGB for that image.
Then soft proof to your printer profile and edit away till you think it looks right, and finally send them the file. See if that fixes your contrast issues.

Btw just because you send someone a file doesn't mean they won't tamper with it. Like increase the contrast to make it "look better"