PS CS Question

[minatophase3]

I just upgraded from PS 6.0 to CS last night. I have been shooting in RAW mode and love it, but I have a question. Once I get an image the way I want it, then go to Save for Web the colors are a lot less saturated and look kind of blah. This never happened in 6.0 but then again I was always shooting in JPEG and with a different camera.

Am I missing something or is this just what happens when you convert for the Web from a RAW file?

Thanks

Tim

[minatophase3]

I think I figured it out. I had the color management set to Adobe RGB (1998) and needed to change it to sRGB.

So, I still have a question, what do most people use for their color management settings?

Thanks again.

Tim

[4walls]

I do everything in sRGB. The photo store that prints my photos works
in sRGB so the colors on my monitor (roughly calibrated with Adobe's
Gamma adjuster) match the photos quite closely.

[Jesper]

I have my working space set to Adobe RGB in PS CS. I convert my RAW images to Adobe RGB too. When I prepare an image for putting it on the web, I convert it to sRGB (Image / Mode / Convert to Profile), because that color space more or less matches "the average monitor" so the chance that it will look OK on the web is best. Most printing services don't understand ICC profiles, so when I send them a photo for printing I also convert to sRGB, because that's usually what their equipment expects.

You can argue whether it's worth it to work in a color space with a larger gamut, such as Adobe RGB vs. sRGB. My own printer can print colors that are outside the gamut of sRGB. If you don't print yourself then maybe Adobe RGB isn't so useful.

Every now and then I find that I have a photo in which a color slightly changes if I convert it to sRGB. For a demonstration of how the color changes from Adobe RGB to sRGB, do this:

1. Go to http://www.ltlimagery.com/monitordisplay.htm and right-click and save the image on the bottom of the page (with all the colors).
2. Set your working space to Adobe RGB in PS CS
3. Open the image in PS CS (it will open as "Untagged RGB")
4. Choose Image / Mode / Convert to Profile and select sRGB. By toggling the Preview checkbox you can see what the conversion does to the colors.

If you do this the other way around (set working space to sRGB, open image, convert to Adobe RGB), you'll see that nothing changes. That's because the Adobe RGB space is larger than the sRGB space. If you try to squeeze Adobe RGB into sRGB, you'll loose some colors, but not the other way around.