sRGB VS RGB

[jfrancho]

I do exactly zero printing myself. However, a display profile is not what you want to assign to your printer. The manufacturer should have profiles for their printer/paper combination along with any documentation on how to use them. Creating your own printer profiles requires yet another device, like this: ColorVision PrintFIX PRO Color Profiling.
In other words, I leave this part of the work flow up to White House Custom Color or Mpix.

[m1ks]

Thanks again.
I'll have a play around and see what I can do with that.

Mike

[Rense]

I take a very simplistic approach in sRGB/RGB: you can always go from a higher colorspace like RGB to a smaller colorspace like sRGB.
So therefore shooting is always in RGB and postprocessing gives sRGB or RGB.

[kevin_c]

jfrancho - I know this is an old(ish) post but I've just read it through, and would like to thank you for the time and trouble of explaining this 'dark' subject in fairly easy to digest words

[jfrancho]

You're welcome, Kevin. If you have any questions, go ahead and ask away, and I'll try to find the answers

[kevin_c]

OK... - Do you think there is any advantage/disadvantage in using ProPhoto RGB rather than Adobe RGB? - I've started using it since getting Lightroom and have had no apparent problems, but just wondered if it's much different to aRGB which i've been using for some time?

I shoot exclusively RAW and use LR for most general adjustmenst and convert to 16bit TIF and then do any final adjustments/pp work/cropping etc. in CS2.

Thanks

[jfrancho]

Yes there is. It has a bigger gamut. I use it all the time. I'm not sure how the color policies work in LR, I'll have to check when I get home, but you'll want to be sure that ProPhoto RGB is your default RGB working color space. That way, you can convert from RGB mode to L*a*b mode and back again (always in 16 bpc mode!!!) without creating a triple hop in color spaces. Why would you convert to L*a*b mode during editing? Here is reason: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/...elviaTouch.pdf
Curves, and other channel based adjustments can be very powerful in L*a*b mode. That's a whole other thread, though .

[mimiya]

Hello, I just came across this thread this morning. This is a great explanation of color management! Thank you!

I have one question. I shoot in RAW so when my file opens in PS a pop up box says something like 'this file does not have a color space assigned, do you want to assign one?' what do I want to do ? I have just chosen 'leave unassigned' so far. Should I be choosing one of the other choices )srgb, rgb).

[jfrancho]

In ACR, there is a droplist in the lower left that allows you to choose what working color space to convert to. You'll also want to verify that you converted to 16 bit/channel for color depth to extract all the data from the raw file.

[mimiya]

duh....I knew this, but forgot! So, I should select 16 bit/adobeRGB is ACR, correct?

[jfrancho]

Yes to 16 bits/channel, and "it's up to you " for color space.

[mimiya]

Thanks so much for clarifying this for me!

[jfrancho]

You're welcome.

[jgillmanjr]

jfrancho: Thanks for the above information. Back in the day when I was just interested in what aRGB was about, I think I read this article and was like "well, what the hell is aRGB good for?"

I'm still a bit confused though - I shoot in RAW on my 40D, so does that mean the selected color space in the options doesn't matter then, as all the color information would be there for an aRGB image?

[Eero Makela]

From what I understand of RAW it does not have a color space setting. Yes it may have a default based on camera setting when you open it in a program that is aware of the RAW format. But the RAW file has the largest gamut of colors possible and all you need to do at the end of the processing is to decide what you convert it to. sRGB for web.

[ohenry]

The RAW file itself doesn't have a color space embedded, it's just raw data, but when you process it to TIFF/PSD/JPG format, you need to embed the profile.

I'm a bit confused by the term RGB as a color space ... they're all RGB (red,green, blue). I assume people are referring to AdobeRGB when they say RGB.

[jgillmanjr]

I'm curious why there's a colorspace option even on the camera then, or is that just for if you shoot jpeg (blah!)?

[blumesan]

Originally Posted by jgillmanjr

I'm curious why there's a colorspace option even on the camera then, or is that just for if you shoot jpeg (blah!)?

Yes, the color space selected in camera is only used to create the jpeg image.

[jgillmanjr]

Ok. This is making more sense.
So in reality, everything I've been doing that's been going to photoshop has actually been in Prophoto RGB as that's how it's been set in Lightroom (where I handle ALL my raw processing)

[pop]

Jfrancho;
Although only mentioned briefly. I do my own printing. I work in RGB mode shot from raw in PS. I just make sure that my printer ( in this case EpsonR350 ) is also set to print in RGB. The same is true if working in sRGB. Set your printer to print in sRGB.