Color Space for commercial printing?

[Stearmandriver]

Can't tell you how long I've been wondering why my web gallery prints looked under-saturated compared to my prints. Did some research on it tonight. Oh. sRGB=problem fixed.

But, which color space is best for export to a commercial lab for printing? I shoot and work in aRGB, and those prints on my Epson inkjet at home look great, and for that matter so do my lab prints, but I was wondering if there's a "correct" answer here? Which color space do most lab printers like, or can they just read them all?

Joe

[ryno4youth]

For professional portrait work sRGB is fine and preffered/required by many labs. However, in the commercial world, Adobe RGB is king, because of the expanded color space.

[Stearmandriver]

Can you elaborate on the difference between labs, which prefer sRGB, and "the commercial world", which likes Adobe?

I guess what I'm asking is, when I'm done processing a photo and I send it to Ritz Camera, or Wal-Mart, or whatever, for prints, does it make a difference which color space it's in? I've been sending them aRGB because I didn't know the difference, and I've been getting beautiful prints, but you always wonder if something easy like this could make them just a little better. :)

Thanks...

[digital92805]

I used to work at Wal-Mart. They use sRGB. You should continue to do what you are doing if the prints look fine. Converting from ARGB to SRGB may not be a good idea. Sams club used the same color space also. I think Costco does too, not sure though.

[Stearmandriver]

Well, after poking around a little, it seems that my copy of PS is saving files in sRGB after all, so that's probably why my prints are coming out well from the commercial printers. I don't understand why this is happening, as I shoot in aRGB and have aRGB set in Adobe Raw, but after editing, pics are being saved in sRGB. I'll have to research that one, but since the prints are coming out good I'm not going to worry about it too much.