10D Parameters in the Shooting Menu

[psk4363]

Hi All,

Something I've been meaning to ask for the past 4 weeks since upgrading to the 10D - I do all of my adjustments, manipulations, etc., in Photoshop 7 (still not sure about upgrading to PS CS). My level of ability in PS 7 is possibly 'intermediate' in that I teach the basics to members of my camera club once a week.

I have had the parameters set to the default 'Standard' but should I use the 'Adobe RGB' setting instead? Comments and suggestions?

Cheers,
Barry

[w10d]

Not really a simple answer to that, a lot depends on your workflow. I would suggest for your own sanity that you should make a choice and stick with it, but I'm sure someone else will say to change the setting to suit the situation....

Generally, pros prefer the ARGB setting as they have been using this within Photoshop, as part of their workflow. Apart from anything else, it has a larger gamut, but not so large that you're working on colours that a high quality calibrated monitor can't display. I'm not going into CM in a big way here, so I'll leave it at that.

Some people prefer sRGB, because this is a relatively safe space, based on the gamut of the average monitor, and therefore ideal for images which are going to be on the web. Some pros also like to work in sRGB if they are unsure how their images are going to be CM'd once in the hands of their client (and their repro). LAB would be a safer bet (only one flavour), but that's another thing...

I think the inclusion of ARGB was a good thing, but it's implementation was a bit half-hearted on the 10D. Until my copy of PS CS arrives, I'm still using Canon's FVU for RAW conversions, and it seems not to embed profiles, which is a bit annoying, (though I haven't looked closely, maybe I've missed something).

[psk4363]

Thanks w10d - I guess what you're saying is, depending on what you are currently doing, make your choice to suit and get used to the results. As I'm not a pro, rather a keen amateur and full-time cop, I reckon I'll stick with sRGB.

Cheers,
Barry

[w10d]

Yes, that's about it: you can always change down the road, it would just mean having to deal with a profile mismatch everytime you opened an old image (not difficult, just annoying).

sRGB did get a bit of a bad name amongst Photoshop users when Colour Management was introduced, but it didn't really deserve it. It's ideal for use with web, non Colour managed workflows, and images which may pass through non CM systems.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I switched to AdobeRGB some time back,. I had to find out where to tell PS to use Adobe RBG as the default working sapce.

If you shoot jpeg,. the 10D still does not seem to embed the tag for A-RGB so PS still asks,.. but when I shoot raw and use the Adobe RAW plugin it doesn't ask,. it just knows.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Oh,. and no,. I don't see a big difference using one or the other really, but it was how I got my monitor, images and printer using the same profile ..

for now,.


sort of ,.


I think


:( Really I have no clue how to calibrate! :(

[openspace]

sRGB was primarily created as the color space of choice for images designed to be viewed online - hence why Microsoft had such a big hand in developing the standard. Using sRGB ensures that your images will be accurately displayed on even low end monitors.

Adobe RGB on the other hand was developed to take advantage of the entire color gamut (i.e. collection of colors and shades of colors) available to (most) CMYK printers.

So what it comes down to is monitors vs. printers. Which are you creating your images for?

Now many consumer inkjet printers can't print anything beyond what is included in the sRGB color space anyway, so basically using Adobe RGB seems to provide no additional value.

But does that mean you shouldn't use it? Absolutely not! Because when you do print on a printer than can print beyond the sRGB color space, Adobe RGB really shines, especially in its saturation of cyans and greens.

You should capture all the color you can. Shoot in Adobe RGB. You can always convert it to sRGB if you have to. But you can't go the other way. If you shoot in sRGB, you lose color data. And you can't get it back with a quick conversion. You hobble your images.

Now as I said, you won't think it matters if you can't display those additional colors on your monitor or printer anyway. But what if your next generation inkjet can? What if the lab that is going to produce your 24 x 30's can? If you shot in sRGB, you'll lose out.

I'm telling you, on a high end printer, the difference can be dramatic.

For more information and to view a graphical representation of the size difference between sRGB and Adobe RBG color spaces, read "Introduction to Color Spaces" on the Dry Creek Photo website. It can be found here...

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_spaces.htm

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Now many consumer inkjet printers can't print anything beyond what is included in the sRGB color space anyway, so basically using Adobe RGB seems to provide no additional value.

There are consumers inkjet printers that print wider than sRGB. You may have to use a suitable printer+paper profile. I've got some examples here:

http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/27_gamuts.htm

You can see that "out-of-the-box" the Canon S9000 isn't much different from sRGB, but the Pictorico profile shows that it is capable of more. And the examples for the other printers are all larger than sRGB.

So you can get a benefit from Adobe RGB without having to go to a high-end printer.

Regards,

[w10d]

openspace wrote:
Adobe RGB on the other hand was developed to take advantage of the entire color gamut (i.e. collection of colors and shades of colors) available to (most) CMYK printers.

So what it comes down to is monitors vs. printers. Which are you creating your images for?


Not strictly true: The AdobeRGB colourspace was developed some time after Adobe introduced CM into PS. The initial default colourspace for PS was sRGB (some of the PS development team were very unhappy about this, I gather), and many end users were dissatisfied with this choice. Some developed their own RGB workspaces, but most adopted one of the SMPTE spaces (can't remember which offhand). Before long Adobe introduced Adobe RGB (1998), which if I recall correctly was very close to the SMPTE space many had adopted. Both sRGB and ARGB are in fact based on monitor colourspaces, but intended as device independant colourspaces, rather than device profiles. As a larger RGB space ARGB has nothing to do with CMYK printers, it's gamut contains more colour outside the range of a typical CMYK device than even sRGB. (But, at the same time, it includes parts of CMYK missing from sRGB).

openspace wrote:
You should capture all the color you can. Shoot in Adobe RGB. You can always convert it to sRGB if you have to. But you can't go the other way. If you shoot in sRGB, you lose color data. And you can't get it back with a quick conversion. You hobble your images.

With a good quality profiled monitor it is easy to see how much an image changes when moving from ARGB to sRGB: In PS select convert profile and select sRGB as the new profile, tick and untick the preview box and look for colour changes as the image is re-mapped into sRGB. Generally I find it difficult to spot differences, although with some colours it can be significant.

It is easy to get the impression from technical data, that sRGB is a severely limited colourspace, but in everyday photographic use that is far from the truth. Having said that, I still use ARGB as my workspace.

[openspace]

I couldn't disagree more. First off, sRGB and Adobe RGB were proposed as standards around the same time - 1998. If sRGB was the default color space standard adopted by Photoshop, it wasn't the default for long.

sRGB was the result of a joint effort by Microsoft and HP. According to Gary Starkweather of Microsoft, "...sRGB is not a perfect color space. However it is representative of the majority of devices on which color is and will to be viewed." - http://www.srgb.com/srgbcolorspacepaper.pdf. In other words it was designed as a compromise, to ensure that accurate color would be displayed on the majority of viewing devices at both the high and low end. It is the middle ground.

However, since the sRGB standard was proposed, the ability of monitors and printers - even at the low end - to display colors beyond those encompassed in the sRGB color space has improved significantly. It is for this reason that HP and Microsoft are now proposing a new standard - e-sRGB, extended-sRGB or sRGB64 - to address this change. In other words, sRGB is outdated. See http://www.srgb.com for more info.

Adobe RGB on the other hand was specifically created to meet the needs of printing and imaging professionals. To quote Phil Askey of Digital Photography Review, "Adobe RGB (1998), defined by Adobe Corp. is the most common colorspace used by professional graphics designers, publications and digital imaging professionals, it provides a much wider gamut (range of colors), it has a much better ability to capture very deep or bright color." - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond100/page11.asp.

Lest we forget, Adobe first and foremost is a company that has focused on the professional who creates for the printed page. It is for these professionals that Adobe RGB was proposed (although not solely for this reason), professionals who weren't satisfied with a middle ground, professionals who wanted to take advantage of the larger color gamut reproduceable on professional grade CMYK printers - and now many consumer inkjet printers.

No, sRGB is not a severely limited color space, but when compared to Adobe RGB, it is clipped. And even the creators acknowledge that it's nearing the end of it's life.

For today's professional digital photographer with the tools available to take advantage of a larger color gamut than sRGB provides, for the photographer that wants to ensure the highest color rendition in his/her printer photographs, Adobe RGB is the default choice.

The photographer using sRGB can still produce beautiful work. But they are missing color data. So again I ask, if you can capture more color data by using Adobe RGB, why would you choose to limit yourself by employing an inferior standard designed more for displaying on the Web than for printing?

[defordphoto]

That being said, when I got my 10D I set it to Adobe RGB (as recommended by Sports Illustrated photojournalists) and have not looked back. It produces stunning results at the printer/lab and/or the web/computer monitor.

My D60 is stuck on sRGB as there is no choice, and it also produces stunning results at the printer/lab and/or the web/computer monitor.

I don't know what the exact differences are and have never, nor will I ever run comparisons.

It is quite interesting the learn the history behind both sRGB and Adobe RGB.

[w10d]

openspace wrote:
I couldn't disagree more. First off, sRGB and Adobe RGB were proposed as standards around the same time - 1998. If sRGB was the default color space standard adopted by Photoshop, it wasn't the default for long.



I'm not asking you to agree, what I wrote was based on fact: When PS introduced CM (in version 5 going from memory) sRGB was chosen as the default colourspace - Adobe RGB did not exist. I have heard (2nd hand) that a number of the development team were unhappy with this choice - certainly a lot of users were. I adopted the SMPTE (240M??) Colourspace along with many others at this time. Some created their own RGB colourspace, such as BruceRGB. Whatever, people felt they were being shortchanged by Adobe with this Microsoft 'lowest common denominator' colourspace, why own a Barco and work in a cheap 'Windows' CRT colourspace, etc.

Thankfully Adobe chose to improve a number of features of their implementation of CM in the next upgrade, (as the original left a lot to be desired), and at the same time provided an entirely new Colourspace: Adobe RGB (1998). I'm not certain what year this was, it may well have been named when it was created rather than when it was released to the public - going on memory this came with PS5.5. (Incidentally, AdobeRGB(1998) was very similar to the particular SMPTE cs that had become popular).

openspace wrote:
Lest we forget, Adobe first and foremost is a company that has focused on the professional who creates for the printed page. It is for these professionals that Adobe RGB was proposed (although not solely for this reason), professionals who weren't satisfied with a middle ground, professionals who wanted to take advantage of the larger color gamut reproduceable on professional grade CMYK printers - and now many consumer inkjet printers.


Larger colour gamut of professional CMYK printers??? Have you ever tried converting from any RGB workspace into 4 colour separations? Basic CMYK misses some large areas from RGB (regardless of flavour), especially in blues. I have been watching what happens to photographic images when they end up in print for a ling time - sometimes it's very nasty. No way was Adobe RGB made for print, it is there for digital imaging in RGB, doesn't make any difference if that RGB file is going to a Lambda, Lightjet, Iris, Press, web, or whatever. Adobe RGB has nothing to do with images going into 4 colour separation, even if a lot of them end up there.

As for consumer inkjet: They can have a larger gamut than press, because they are using 7 inks instead of 4 - it is fairly obvious, this is were their ability to produce 'photo-realistic' prints comes from. It is significant that such printers expect files in RGB, and convert to CLCMLMYK themselves.

openspace wrote:
The photographer using sRGB can still produce beautiful work. But they are missing color data. So again I ask, if you can capture more color data by using Adobe RGB, why would you choose to limit yourself by employing an inferior standard designed more for displaying on the Web than for printing?
Because most of the colours appearing in photographs will fit within the sRGB colourspace, OR can be placed within that colourspace without any noticable degradation of the image.

Have you tried my suggestion of experimenting with previewing profile conversions?

A job I recently handed over to a magazine for repro conversion to CMYK (with match prints) was going into a workflow I was unsure of. I had worked as usual in ARGB, but converted to sRGB for the final CD going to my client. I was unable to detect ANY shift in colour values on any of the images.

sRGB can fit some workflows, and I do know of one professional fashion photographer who has chosen to work in sRGB since going over to digital capture.

I use ARGB: I just want to clear up the reason that the space exists, and point out that too many people have demonized sRGB, it really isn't that bad - oh no, maybe I'll be sticking up for JPEGs next :)

[openspace]

Very true. sRGB is not bad. It just isn't the best choice if you have the 10D.

RGB - the three primary colors of light - by default is designed for color display on the screen. Your computer monitor is RGB. Your television is RGB.

CMYK - the four subtractive primary colors - is designed for color display on paper. A 4-color ink jet is CMYK - You have a black cartridge (K - Key, Black) and a 3 color cartridge (C - cyan/bluegreen, Y-yellow, M-magenta). Even a 7-color inkjet works off the principles of CMYK.

Everything image you print, whether it is in the sRGB, Adobe RGB, ColorMatch RGB or any other RGB color space prints out in CMYK. This is what color management, ICC profiles and color spaces are all about - achieving match between the RGB image displayed on an RGB monitor and what the CMYK printer outputs. It has been an ongoing problem for years.

The issue is even more of a problem if you need to work in CMYK onscreen because CMYK does not display well on RGB monitors. You are correct in pointing out that converting an RGB digital photo to CMYK for purposes of seperation produces an ugly onscreen image. Surprisingly though, it does print out OK provided your monitor and printer are correctly profiled. That is because communication between your monitor and printer does not depend on what is displayed, but on translation of the numeric color values assigned to the image. It's just not pretty to look at onscreen. If you have to (God forbid) convert an image from RGB to CMYK for purposes of the print process, and it doesn't print correctly, I would argue that it is a profile or conversion issue, not an issue with limitations of the CMYK color space.

Thankfully for the graphic designer that has to work in CMYK in Illustrator, Freehand or CorelDRAW, however, that is changing...

Phillips made a major breakthrough when they introduced the very first CMYK monitor to the graphic design market, effectively eliminating color issues for designers that have to work in CMYK onscreen. With this new monitor, what you will see on the screen in CMYK is what you will print. No more conversions or ugly displayed colors. (on the other hand, RGB images displayed on this monitor look funky)

I have converted images from Adobe RGB to sRGB and frankly, I do notice a difference, especially in saturated areas of green - sunlit foliage for example - and in some of my skies. They just lose luster. Now I can generally compensate for this by playing around with hue & saturation in Photoshop a bit. But why bother when I can just shoot in Adobe RGB?

Color management is very complicated. I deal with it on a daily basis as a consultant to 40 graphic design firms around the US. RGB vs. CMYK, monitor vs. printer, 4-color spot process vs. full color bleeds. You can get a PhD in this stuff. But back to the original question - if I am shooting with a 10D, processing with Photoshop, and I want to make sure I capture all the color I can, should I use sRGB or Adobe RGB?

The answer most definitely is Adobe RGB.

[w10d]

openspace wrote:
Everything image you print, whether it is in the sRGB, Adobe RGB, ColorMatch RGB or any other RGB color space prints out in CMYK. This is what color management, ICC profiles and color spaces are all about - achieving match between the RGB image displayed on an RGB monitor and what the CMYK printer outputs. It has been an ongoing problem for years.


Wrong. Is a Lambda print CMYK? How about a Lightjet? Get my point now? CM is, of course, very useful whenever images have to pass down a workflow, but it is NOT about RGB to CMYK - far from it. If it were that simple we'd all be jumping at the chance to charge our clients for colour separations and repro would be losing out.

The 'ongoing problem' has been colour management in general. I used to have my work output onto 10x8 negative film, because there was no reliable way to manage the colour between my system and my lab. Note that the film output device worked in RGB, not CMYK. I was going from film to RGB (scanner), working in RGB (monitor) outputting in RGB, and doing the CM in final print film. The reason for going to neg was to regain control of the colour in the final photo print stage. CM in Ps finally put a stop to that!

CM was an issue whenever and wherever digital files were moved between computers, the issues of transfering an RGB mode image into a CMYK mode image are something completely different: The image has to maintain it's appearance when moving from one system (say the photographer's) to another (say the repro). Handling the conversion does'nt raise any such issues as it can be done perfectly well without CM, but within a closed loop system. How do you magazines and books got published before icc profiles came along?

CM is about maintaining colour between devices, not converting colour modes. (Naturally I accept that the devices might be RGB-CMYK-colour inkjet, etc).

openspace wrote:
You are correct in pointing out that converting an RGB digital photo to CMYK for purposes of seperation produces an ugly onscreen image. Surprisingly though, it does print out OK provided your monitor and printer are correctly profiled. That is because communication between your monitor and printer does not depend on what is displayed, but on translation of the numeric color values assigned to the image. It's just not pretty to look at onscreen. If you have to (God forbid) convert an image from RGB to CMYK for purposes of the print process, and it doesn't print correctly, I would argue that it is a profile or conversion issue, not an issue with limitations of the CMYK color space.



No, I'm talking about the final repro NOT a monitor display! You can colour correct an image with a B&W monitor, as long as you know what you are doing with the numbers, but there is a whole lot of skill in making up the deficiencies of CMYK print for photographic images.

I really don't know how you can be so concerned about the sRGB ARGB difference and then suggest that a photographic image will print in CMYK without issues. The clipping (in blue especially) is hugh compared to sRGB ARGB.

I do find it curious that Canon only provided sRGB on the D60 and seem to have put it on the 10D as an afterthought - almost like it's just there to make the workflow easier (no mismatches). At some point I'd like to look at this more closely, but for now PS CS has just arrived, and I'm going to immerse myself in that.

[psk4363]

Phew! Just look at what I started! Got to say thanks to all those who contributed to this (very deep at times) discussion. I have, as a surprise to me, learned a hell of a lot from the replies.

My God what a knowledgeable forum this really is.

Cheers,
Barry

[openspace]

W10d is correct in his analysis of the Lambda and Lightjet laser printers - as well as others. These printers do use 3 lasers in red, green and blue to expose color-sensitive dyes on paper like Fuji Crystal Archive. These printers work off the same principle as a monitor or CRT-based television, which "paints" the picture onscreen using 3 electron guns - red, green and blue.

However, for the photographer who "develops" his/her images at home on an inkjet or pigment ink printer, the RGB - CMYK arguments still apply. Your monitor displays your image in RGB. Your inket prints out in CMYK or if you have a 6, 7 or 8-color inkjet in some varient of CMYK.

From the Communications Arts website...

"The Epson and HP inkjet printers actually use CMYK inks, CMYK +cÃ*+mÃ* for the Epson 6–color cartridge. The Epson and HP software is optimized to take RGB files then convert them automatically to CMYK when printing so don’t do the CMYK conversion in Photoshop before printing."

http://www.commarts.com/CA/feadesign/printers/04_printer.html

The second half of that quote is important. You do not have to convert your RGB prints to print in CMYK on your inket. The software handles this conversion. It is true that if you do the conversion from RGB to CMYK in Photoshop before printing, the resultant image may look like crap. This is because consumer inkjet printer software isn't optimized for this.

So yes, just keep your RGB images in RGB and print. Provided your system is properly color managed - I recommend a system like Eye-One - the conversion will be correct. CM is about maintaining color. That is correct. However part of maintaining color is proper color conversion between the RGB onscreen and CMYK output on paper.

OK. So final stab at the sRGB and Adobe RGB question. A hypothetical - Let's say you have 50 colors that make up the entire color spectrum visible to the human eye, but most monitors can only display 25 of them. Sure, some can display 30 - 35 and some really crappy systems can only display 15 - 20. What to do if you want to make sure your RGB images properly display on most monitors? Well, you compromise and that is what the sRGB team did.

They were concerned with what the average viewer saw on his monitor while surfing the Net at home, that colors in an image display properly. How do you do that? You create a color space limited to the 25 colors that 95% of the monitors can display. They recognized that if you uploaded images to the Internet that went beyond this hypothetical 25 colors, the colors in the image outside this "safe" zone may not be displayed properly by the user's monitor, and generate unpredictable results - i.e. what looked great on your high end Trinitron may look really crappy on Joe Iowa's 15" Colorific. This is not acceptable if you are a global company seeking to reach a global audience with an image rich website. You need it to look good to the majority of people. sRGB.

So back to the land of the digital photographer. You aren't concerned with Joe Iowa's monitor. You aren't snapping pictures to display (solely) on a website. You don't care if Ma and Pa Kettle can see all the rich colors in your image on their Wal-Mart special. You want all the color data you can capture to ensure that the images displayed on your high end monitor are what is recreated by your i9100 or Epson 2200. Or next year's 400 ink SuperJet special. You have a system that can display 30-35 of the 50 total colors, and you don't want to clip to 25. You don't have to. You are printing for the human eye. If you can capture 30, 35 or 40 of the total colors visible to the human eye, by god, this is what you are going to do. So you shoot in Adobe RGB, because it captures more than the "safe" colors.

Now obviously this is a hugely simplified example. In reality, we're talking mostly about imperceptible differences in color shades. Make no mistake, sRGB prints can and do look fantastic. But the premise is the same - why shoot in a color space designed for proper display on the masses' monitors when you can shoot in a color space designed not for the masses, but to capture the most colors for display on the best printers, generating the most saturated, contrasty, crisp images? Adobe RGB.

w10D - Let me know what you think of PS CS. My copy is arriving later this week.

[w10d]

openspace wrote:
In reality, we're talking mostly about imperceptible differences in color shades. Make no mistake, sRGB prints can and do look fantastic. But the premise is the same - why shoot in a color space designed for proper display on the masses' monitors when you can shoot in a color space designed not for the masses, but to capture the most colors for display on the best printers, generating the most saturated, contrasty, crisp images? Adobe RGB.


Great, we've established that CM is about maintaining colour fidelity across different devices and environments, rather than colour mode changes.

I think what you're asking at the end here is 'why shoot in sRGB when Adobe RGB is better?' - or something along those lines.

Well, I'll have to play devil's advocate, as I use an Adobe RGB workflow myself: If you are going to bring your images into an environment which lacks any colour management, a non-CM savvy application for example, then your ARGB profile will be ignored and the image will be handled as if it was in Apple RGB or sRGB. I believe that most direct camera to print set-ups (such as the Canon CP-300 dye sub) expect to receive sRGB files.

Also, if you are unsure about Ps's CM set-up and leave it on the default (I'm sure plenty of people do this) you will be bringing ARGB files into a sRGB environment. Fortunately PS should be giving a mismatch warning, but it's just one more thing to deal with when opening images.

As I've already said, I'm not advocating all digital photographer's should use sRGB - just that it might suit some - and the trade off in quality is really not as bad as some people say.

I have heard talk of people shooting JPEG in stead of RAW, and even putting non-L lenses on their 10Ds - surely using sRGB is a lesser crime?

(Joking)

openspace wrote:
w10D - Let me know what you think of PS CS. My copy is arriving later this week.


Well, I've been using Canon FVU so Adobe Raw Converter is a dream come true!! There's so much more you can do in 16 bit, at last. Live histograms (and for each channel), I think I'll feel guilty using the Highlight/Shadow adjustment, it seems like cheating (bit like the healing tool did after all those years with the clone tool). Haven't had a proper look at the lens blur filter, but at last photoshop can reproduce focus effects without 3rd party add-ons. Th file browser has grown up a lot, its hard to explain but it feels like you're meant to be using it...

I'm beginning to think this is the best upgrade I've had since we got layers in PS3 - really an upgrade for photographers more than graphic designers.

[design crusader]

You are correct, in Photoshop 5, the default RGB colorspace was indeed sRGB. But, if you were to do a search on the internet and find any Photoshop (5.0) guru advice (from pros and others) you would see that even when CM profiles were first integrated into Photoshop, it was recommended when RGB images were intended for print, you do NOT use sRGB -- there are too many examples of articles to list, but here is clip an article in July 1999.

----------

Picture This

What Happened to My Color?

By Joseph "Ziggy" Tiraco

For some of us who are working in Adobe Photoshop (PSD) version 4 and want to make the change to version 5. And for those who did make the change and now want to know what happened to the color. I have to tell you something. This is for those of us who don't use ColorSync to the fullest. Adobe Photoshop 5 is now more ColorSync savvy then ever before. And things happen in the background by default… like color. While Adobe Photoshop 5 brings the benefits of ColorSync color management into the mainstream, it will require some initial input to Photoshop's default settings to customize it for design and print publishing. To avoid complications, Adobe advises: be sure to follow the steps below before you open an existing file or create your first Photoshop file.

Color Settings

First begin by selecting Color Setting from the file menu. As in the sample below.

There are 4 easy steps to follow, RGB Setup, CMYK Setup, Grayscale Setup, and Profile Setup. With these 4 steps, you to can make device-independent color management part of your daily work routine. Adobe Photoshop 5 will automatically embed, or write, ColorSync/ICC profiles in image files and establish a known "working" color space for each one. You'll be able to count on color that will look the same on all different workstations across all platforms.

Step #1

RGB Setup. With this release of Adobe Photoshop 5, it has included predefined, device-independent RGB color spaces in which you can choose to work. In earlier versions, your RGB working color space was your monitor. That's how the color discrepancies happened which led to color shifts between workstation and unpredictable results in print.

The default setting for the RGB is "sRGB." As you can see in the above sample, it is the native color space for some scanners, inkjet printers, and PC monitors. Because of its smaller gamut, it is not recommended for the print publishing community.

Select ColorMatch RGB or Apple RGB, not sRGB, for print. ColorMatch RGB is based on the Radius Press View display and currently best fits the range of color reproducible in print and displayable on the monitor. If you prefer to use the same setting that Adobe Photoshop 4 used as its default RGB working space, then choose Apple RGB. Gamma, white point, and primaries automatically change to those shown.

[w10d]

design crusader wrote:
But, if you were to do a search on the internet and find any Photoshop (5.0) guru advice (from pros and others) you would see that even when CM profiles were first integrated into Photoshop, it was recommended when RGB images were intended for print, you do NOT use sRGB -- there are too many examples of articles to list, but here is clip an article in July 1999.


Absolutely, as I said in 2 previous posts, 'The initial default colourspace for PS was sRGB (some of the PS development team were very unhappy about this, I gather), and many end users were dissatisfied with this choice.'

There were a variety of recommendations for alternative choices, which one you went for depended on who you listened to, personal testing, your labs choice, etc. I would, however, dispute that this had anything to do with print - just that at that time most 'graphic's people' were involved in print (rather than photography), and most articles, books, etc., were written for them. (Think of Photoshop Tips type magazine articles back then: It was all about funky type effects and drop shadows, that's why PS has progressively been laiden down with easy ways to achive these effects. Thankfully CS has plenty of 'photographer specific' features).

When 5 came out and I had got it's CM systems firmly into my head, I went to a major London pro lab, to discuss transfering all my work to them. I was particuarly concerned about the digital side, and worked my way through their staff until I got the boss. He admitted they didn't have PS5, and weren't in any hurry to get it, because the CM raised too many issues. I spent about an hour explaining CM to him, but stayed with my lab :-)

It was a nightmare.