Color Space - Adobe RGB or sRGB?

[jackley]

Sorry for what I'm sure is a common question, but I'm a bit of a beginner.

I have a 20D and always use PhotoShop CS to import and edit my photos.

I've read that I should be using the Adobe RGB (1998), but I've never really understood why.

Comments or links are welcome, thanks.

james

[Morden]

Adobe RGB employs a wider colour gamut than sRGB. This means that more different, distinct shades of colours can be recorded using Adobe RGB than can be recorded using sRGB.

[pcasciola]

I recently switched over to aRGB for the increased color space as well, but I'm wondering what the downsides are, if any. I'm using Photoshop CS, but if I save the JPEG for the web or try to print from another program, do I need to worry about having a color profile in that file that other people or applications may have a problem with?

Also, it took me a while to figure out the new file naming (_MG_xxxx instead of IMG_xxxx), which I didn't realize was because of the aRGB setting. :oops:

[Reminisce]

I recently switched over to aRGB for the increased color space as well, but I'm wondering what the downsides are, if any. I'm using Photoshop CS, but if I save the JPEG for the web or try to print from another program, do I need to worry about having a color profile in that file that other people or applications may have a problem with?

Also, it took me a while to figure out the new file naming (_MG_xxxx instead of IMG_xxxx), which I didn't realize was because of the aRGB setting. :oops:


You know, embarrassingly, I didnt know that either and was wondering why that started happening. Dont feel alone :oops:

[canon_user808]

I also shoot adobeRGB mainly because of it's wider gamut range. From what I experienced, the newer canon printers have a gamut range very similar to aRGB and yield beautiful results when printed from aRGB files. On the other hand commercial printers found at camera shops and department stores use the sRGB color profile or one very similar to sRGB. aRGB can alway be converted down to sRGB but not the inverse. Personally, I do most of my printing at my local costco. I apply their ICC profile after soft proofing in Photoshop. Costco has the ICC profiles avalible for downloading at http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Frontier/FrontierDatabase.htm but they expire and need to be updated regularly for best results.

[Jesper]

If you want to use Adobe RGB, you need to learn about colour management, colour spaces, ICC profiles, etc.

You should only use Adobe RGB if your software (Photoshop) is set up properly.

Note that if you look at an image recorded in Adobe RGB using software that doesn't support colour management (Windows Picture Viewer, Internet Explorer, and just about every other Windows program....), the colours will look wrong - muted, undersaturated.

You should convert images that you're going to display on the Internet to sRGB for that reason - images in sRGB will look OK on most monitors with applications that don't understand colour management.

Here's an introduction and explanation of how to set up Photoshop colour management:
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps8-colour/ps8_1.htm

[gcogger]

The downside of AdobeRGB (apart from having to convert to sRGB for web output) is because it has a wider colour gamut.

The image file has only a certain number of different shades of red, green, blue it can display. If the total range is wider, then the difference between adjacent colour values is wider - in bad cases this can result in posterisation (e.g. banding in colour gradients).

It's not normally an issue unless you are using 8-bits-per-colour images such as JPEGs, or RAW files converted to 8-bit images. Even then, it's not a problem unless you are making significant colour/levels changes to the image.