Adobe RGB vs Prophoto

I know conventional wisdom says to use the Prophoto color space for maximum digital information. But there are two sides to every story. I'm interested in hearing from those who prefer to use the Adobe RGB color space and why? For reasons other than storage restrictions, that is.

I use ProPhoto and see zero negatives for going that route. However, while the color space is huge compared to aRGB that doesn't translate to making a huge improvement to your workflow. If you have a solid understanding of color management then use whatever you are comfortable with.

Frankly, sticking with sRGB workflow is probably good enough for most people.

it makes more sense to go adobe rgb.............even though pro photo is bigger we still have to downsize and convert

Neither. Both are foolish.

http://damiensymonds.b​logspot.com …/the-wide-gamut-myth.html

There's nothing "foolish" about either. They're just a choice.

Keep the originals as prophoto and convert down as needed. There's no reason to downgrade to sRGB if you want/can print in aRGB.

No, keep the originals as Raws, which has no color space and since it contains all the captured data (and in the least digital volume) can be rendered in any space. When the time comes, choose the space that is appropriate for your subject and the output medium. This also has the advantage of keeping quality high by avoiding multiple space conversions.

Bob_A wrote in post #17475402
There's nothing "foolish" about either. They're just a choice.

Yup, a foolish choice for those of us without wide-gamut monitors and printers that can handle wide-gamut images.

Two conditions must be met for saving an image to a color space wider than sRGB to make sense:

First, the image is also containing colors that are outside the sRGB gamut. If it isn't, you'd only be reducing the number of color shades in your image - for absolutely no gain at all!

Second, the image is going to be displayed/printed on devices that are capable of rendering those exceeding colors faithfully, or, you are planning to manually do a better job of pulling the out-of-gamut areas into the target gamut than a direct save to sRGB would.

hollis_f wrote in post #17475537
Yup, a foolish choice for those of us without wide-gamut monitors and printers that can handle wide-gamut images.

That's a better way of putting it. Not all choices are good ones, fine for some people/situations and not for others. I also think ProPhoto is a bad choice for anyone that has a poor understanding of color spaces and color management.

I've seen no harm from using ProPhoto for most of what I shoot. I've seen no significant benefit from it either.

99% of the time I'm only using Lightroom to edit with, which is modified ProPhoto, with no choice for selecting a different color space. Kind of a shame Adobe did this, but I suppose that by removing the ability to choose they also removed some confusion.

For those overwhelmed, here is a primer, and maybe something to ponder for a moment before deciding if it is worth bothering over!

1. 14-bit RAW (14*1) may one day increase in size to 16-bit RAW (16*1) or 24-bit (24*1), but it is the limit to the number of hues and variants that can be stored today in the camera by a single color sensel (a single R or G or B sensitive location). Today, after Bayer processing, the RAW data can be converted to #2 or #3 or #4...
   
2. ProPhoto (or Melissa) is a 16-bit per color (16x16x16) 'internal working space' to hold converted RAW data as one of up to 2.18x1014 hues per RGB pixel, or to be converted to CYMK colorspace
   
3. sRGB is an 8-bit per color (8x8x8)' colorspace', holding info as one of only 16.7 Million hues per RGB pixel
   
4. aRGB is an 8-bit per color (8x8x8) 'colorspace', holding info as one of only 16.7 Million hues per RGB pixel
   

IF aRGB stores 'additional' hues
THEN it HAS TO LOSE some hues from sRGB

...as there are only 16.7 Million values that either can store!

But then...
If you cannot SEE certain hues in your monitor, how do you know they exist in your photograph and that they need to be reproduced by your printer?!

• We can only presume that one day we have monitors that can see all the hues, and that our printers can reproduce all the hues.
  
• Until then, ProPhoto internal work space is hoping for what the future MIGHT bring us one day.
  

tzalman wrote in post #17475610
....Save the Raw and you can render it in one space today and a different one tomorrow, as needed. If you have to do secondary editing in PS and save the result, weigh the advantages versus the disadvantages of the space.

Nice post, tzalman. Thanks!

Process in the widest space you plan to output in. For sRgb is wide enough for web and traditional photographic printing, by using a wider space you're losing graduations. For high end inkjet printing not sure what you need. There are downsides to wide color spcaes.

In general people who ask this kind of question should probably be working in sRgb, as they don't know enough to effectively make the correct decision themselves, and sRgb is good enough for almost everything.

No color space is inherently or necessarily either 8 bit or 16 bit. A color space defines a range of colors (gamut) that it encloses; bit depth describes the number of digits used in the numbers that describe those colors (the zeroes and ones). ProPhoto RGB could be written in 8 bit depth; it is not impossible but would be very unwise because during editing large gaps could open in the continuum of tone shades. Adobe RGB and sRGB can be written to 16 bit precision and Adobe RGB often is. If an image is in sRGB it is the usual practice to use 8 bit encoding because it is probably destined to be used in a medium that supports only 8 bits - stored as a jpg, displayed on the web or printed. A 16 bit sRGB would be overkill and inefficient, but not impossible. Still, if I had to try to salvage a badly underexposed sRGB image, I would prefer to do it in 16 bits.