A few question re: setting in-camera color to sRGB or Adobe RGB?

I shoot 99% RAW and was curious what in-camera setting is recommend? Does it affect RAW images or just jpg? Are there pro's and con's to each? Thanks for any and all replies!

It only affect .jpeg.

Benefit of AdobeRGB is that is you are going to edit the .jpeg you will likely have an expanded color space and have a bit more room for manipulation. Some/most? printers can handle this color space and will give a better reproduction. Do depending on the printer, you might want to use this if sending the files straight to print.

Benefit of sRGB is that is is what monitors use, so if you are going to upload your .jpegs to the web, it is better to use this - the result people will see will most closely resemble what you see on your monitor. If you use AdobeRGB in this case it is likely that people will see something similar, but they might not depending on their monitor profile and how it converts AdobeRGB.

So would you say Adobe RGB is better when converting RAW to jpg in LR to have prints made up?

I only shoot RAW and always have my camera set to AdobeRGB. In Photoshop CS5 I convert to photopro, which I believe is the widest gamut currently available.

When you are shooting Raw, the color space setting will affect the RGB histogram. If you are concerned with shooting "To The Right", it could come in handy since having the camera set to aRGB will give you a little more "room" in the RGB histogram before a particular color gets supposedly clipped -- that is, in sRGB a color could appear to be clipped against the right of the histogram, but with aRGB the histogram will more accurately show the wider range of what the histogram collects).

But if you shoot in that way, be aware that for "real world use" of your photos where you are displaying your photos on the Web, sharing with family/friends/clients​, or sending to labs for prints, the sRGB space is the "universal"/standard space, which most Web browsers, image viewers, and external printers are set up to render. There are more "color aware" apps out there these days, and some home inkjet printers can handle aRGB images, but in general sRGB is "safe".

So, suppose your camera is set to aRGB and you expose so that your RGB histogram is "To The Right"?

Well, you know that those colors are not actually clipped, but if you put the images out into the sRGB world, the colors will often look "off".

You can test things out for yourself in your Raw processing software if you have an app that can change your "working color space" -- the Canon software Digital Photo Professional allows you to do this. You can also get this in Adobe Camera Raw (with Photoshop) by changing the Camera Raw Preferences. In Lightroom it's not built in but LR4 does have a "Print Soft Proofing" utility that may provide this.

Anyway, if you have an image that is good in aRGB but has clipped colors in sRGB, you should look at that and be prepared to process that image for the Web or other sharing -- pull the colors back a bit before you do a final conversion to sRGB for sharing/printing.

dancinmyazoff wrote in post #14043394
So would you say Adobe RGB is better when converting RAW to jpg in LR to have prints made up?

No convert to sRGB if you are sending files to a commercial lab. This is for two reasons:
1. The vast majority of images received by a lab are from P&S cameras that produce only sRGB. Most of those cameras also do not embed the sRGB profile in the file. For this reason their automated software does not look for a profile, it just assumes that everything is sRGB. If you send Adobe RGB that assumption will be wrong. The result will be flat, less saturated and dark.
2. The machines most labs use, Fuji Frontiers or Noritsu printers, have a gamut that is even slightly smaller than sRGB, so even if you find a lab that does custom work and is profile aware, the bigger space won't bring any benefit. There are pro labs that have commercial sized inkjets with wide gamuts, but they generally use them only for very large prints.

tonylong wrote in post #14044941
You can test things out for yourself in your Raw processing software if you have an app that can change your "working color space" -- the Canon software Digital Photo Professional allows you to do this. You can also get this in Adobe Camera Raw (with Photoshop) by changing the Camera Raw Preferences. In Lightroom it's not built in but LR4 does have a "Print Soft Proofing" utility that may provide this.

Anyway, if you have an image that is good in aRGB but has clipped colors in sRGB, you should look at that and be prepared to process that image for the Web or other sharing -- pull the colors back a bit before you do a final conversion to sRGB for sharing/printing.

LR4's proofing is great. Not only does the histogram change to display the image data in the proofed space, you also have an "out of gamut" alarm that shows exactly what colors are OOG and after making a Proof Virtual Copy you simply adjust that color until the alarm disappears.

tzalman wrote in post #14045670
LR4's proofing is great. Not only does the histogram change to display the image data in the proofed space, you also have an "out of gamut" alarm that shows exactly what colors are OOG and after making a Proof Virtual Copy you simply adjust that color until the alarm disappears.

Well, good! Remember all the times we complained about LR not having soft-proofing? Some folks at Adobe actually do listen! I've noticed that with the Lightroom team -- they seem pretty responsive.

And hey, I actually had a good experience with the Adobe "chat" support this week! I had to have my two old activations of CS3 de-activated so I could install on my laptop and my workstation which has been upgraded to Win7 64, so losing all my installations, and so I got onto the Chat support, gave my serial#, and the guy got things done in just a few minutes -- good support that Chat thing and without having to be put on phone-hold!

tzalman wrote in post #14045621
No convert to sRGB if you are sending files to a commercial lab.

Yes, absolutely. This is what they will expect.

I was thinking about home printing when I said what I said.

Since about 2004, over the years I have repeatedly published a challenge, for anyone to mention the name of a commercial photographic printer who can print an aRGB file without first converting that file to sRGB and its narrower profile. Only once, within the past quarter, have I ever had anyone who could list such a commercial lab! IOW, aRGB printing by a commercial photographic print lab is highly unlikely!!!

In recent years home printers were introduced which could print the aRGB gamut, but then they are inkjet and not photographic prints.

Wilt wrote in post #14047186
In recent years home printers were introduced which could print the aRGB gamut, but then they are inkjet and not photographic prints.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Many of the best photographic prints in museums today are archival ink jet prints. These are certainly photographic prints by any standards.

dancinmyazoff wrote in post #14043394
So would you say Adobe RGB is better when converting RAW to jpg in LR to have prints made up?

No. Most commercial printers are set up for sRGB.

HughR wrote in post #14050845
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Many of the best photographic prints in museums today are archival ink jet prints. These are certainly photographic prints by any standards.

What I meant by 'photographic' is optically created prints on light sensitive emulsion. These do not have undesirable characteristics like black ink pigments which sit on top of the coating, or metamerism, or running of dyes when wet with water.

I'm reliably told that if you shoot sRGB you can't then expect to get the full colour gamut if you convert it to AdobeRGB pp, so hence, if you're expecting to get prints from your photography, shoot AdobeRGB convert to sRGB if you want to upload to the web, that way you haven't lost your full range of colour gamut.

PhotoProRGB isn't supported by any printer

Wilt wrote in post #14051219
What I meant by 'photographic' is optically created prints on light sensitive emulsion. These do not have undesirable characteristics like black ink pigments which sit on top of the coating, or metamerism, or running of dyes when wet with water.

That's true. However, modern inkjet printers have very little problem with metamerism any more, and it is claimed that their longevity before fading outlasts silver prints. Some of the best museums in the world collect archival inkjet prints, including the International Center of Photography in New York City. I've been making inkjet prints for 5 years and have never smeared one with water or seen any degradation of the images.