sRGB or Adobe RGB

I just purchased the book "Camera Raw for Digital Photographers Only" by Rob Sheppard. He advocates using the appropriate space for your purposes.

Some quotes from his book:

"sRGB looks snappier with brighter colors and stronger contrast." Pg 60
"Adobe RGB has more adjustment capabilities." Pg 60
"sRGB matches many output devices better, expecially digital printers at labs that print from digital files." Pg 60

In short, if you have special color needs and enjoy spending time on the computer use Adobe RGB. For most photographers sRGB gets them to a print they like faster than Adobe RGB.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond everyone. All I wanted to do was edit and save my images so they'll look good to print in sRGB, then upload these to share with friends and family and allow them to download and print if they like. The print quality is the most important so don't really want to save as aRGB because then they'll look crap if they take them to your everyday photo lab which will most likely assign sRGB. But it would nice if everyone didn't look like they've being playing with the fake tan in the web versions Oh well, guess you can't have everything!

I just can't understand why all the books and web tutorials etc recommend converting to sRGB in Photoshop before using for web to keep the colour consistant(ish) - no-one else seems to complain about the (what I preceive to be significant) colour shift and everyone else's web images don't seem to be highly oversaturated? So why doesn't it work for me I guess I could try callibrating my monitor with a colorimeter but I can't really see that that's going to help? I know I just have to let this go but it's really bugging me!

Thanks again

marnie wrote in post #2071000
Thanks Lester - I have read Scott Kelby's book and followed his suggested settings but it didn't help? I'm just calibrating using Adobe Gamma at the moment until I can save for a proper colourimeter but I have gamma set to 2.2 and white point to 6500K which I thought was Windows standard?

Is your monitor set to 6500K? That is not controlled by the operating system but is set on a monitor menu using buttons on the monitor. They are often delivered with a 7500K or higher white point set.

My one is a cheap dell one, it has options for 7500K 6500K and sRGB (presumably 5500K) for some reason I left it on 6500K and told Adobe Gamma that.

Your examples look very much the same to me if I open them in CS2, except the aRGB is a little darker or higher in contrast. If I convert aRGB to sRGB it looks exactly like the aRGB in CS2 (attached).

Comparing what I see on my browser with what I see in CS2 with the origional aRGB the colour is a good match but the browser version looks slightly lower in contrast indicating that my monitor contrast is a bit lower than callibrated.

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marnie wrote in post #2071280
not that it makes any difference in my browser

It does in mine

Lester Wareham wrote in post #2074630
Is your monitor set to 6500K? That is not controlled by the operating system but is set on a monitor menu using buttons on the monitor. They are often delivered with a 7500K or higher white point set.

As far as I have been able to tell, I can't change anything on my monitor except brightness! Crappy laptop monitor - really need to get something better!
Yep the examples I posted look pretty much the same to me in CS2 too - it's the way the sRGB one displays on the web that I have concerns with?!?

Rene - which browser do you use? And which one looks 'right' to you now the ICC profiles are attached?

marnie wrote in post #2083323
As far as I have been able to tell, I can't change anything on my monitor except brightness! Crappy laptop monitor - really need to get something better!
Yep the examples I posted look pretty much the same to me in CS2 too - it's the way the sRGB one displays on the web that I have concerns with?!?

Rene - which browser do you use? And which one looks 'right' to you now the ICC profiles are attached?

Usually the drivers allow for adjustments of pretty much if you have a nvidia och ati card in your laptop.

Thanks Andreas. I have some sort of nvidea card - how so you access the driver settings? I just went through Display Properties but not sure that this is right?

If you are using Nvidias drivers im pretty sure there is a panel similar to what i have on my Ati cards, you can adjust tons of stuff there.
Under Display Properties ->Settings-> Advanced-> some kind of Nvidia panel i assume.

Im sorry that i cant be more specific at the time since i only have Ati cards in my computers

Maybe someone else can help you out untill i can find a friend who has nvidia cards.

I spent an hour looking at different shots and experimenting with sRGB and Adobe RGB. Here are two photos so you see that after taking the photo on 1D with RAW. Each with it's own color space. Then applying sharpness, color enhancement +2 and fixing white balance. I exported both to JPG and they came out to this. Is there a difference? I can't find it. I will stick to sRGB for now. Because my magazine printer for work I think uses sRGB.

Why not compare the same RAW image processed twice? Makes it a little easier. Now you have a slight diff in WB IMHO.

I didn't do that because on my EOS 1D it has a setting for 1=regular and setting 4 for when processing pictures with Adobe RGB. It is on the first page of settings change. Maybe it affects the picture a little bit?

When editing pictures, you should use AdobeRGB. When you're done, run a USM and then convert to sRGB.

calicokat wrote in post #2022493
I am with cfcRebel on this one

count me in here guys SRGB gives me better prints lol,when I used adobe RGB it was like a lottery,press print and hope for the best.

Double Negative wrote in post #2178351
When editing pictures, you should use AdobeRGB. When you're done, run a USM and then convert to sRGB.

Tell me more???Why??

Yet another good site that may help.
Certainly helped me gain a broader insight

http://www.cambridgein​colour.com/tutorials.h​tm

and in particular

http://www.cambridgein​colour.com …als/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm

hope these help answer your question.